1951-05-31

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: I rise on a question of privilege,
Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of acknowledging publicly that an error of which I complained in this house on May 18 has been corrected. The error appeared in a recent issue of the Ensign and had to do with Quebec and Newfoundland divorce cases. I did not ask the Ensign to make the correction, but that newspaper has done so on its own initiative. I desire to acknowledge that fact and to express my thanks. The correction appears on page 2 of the issue dated June 2, and I might be permitted to quote the last sentence, which reads:
Actually, Knowles wants the federal exchequer court to handle divorces from these provinces.
I thank the Ensign for setting the matter right.



AUDIBILITY OF DEBATE


Right Hon. L. S. St. Laurent (Prime Minister):: Yesterday I undertook to confer
with you, Mr. Speaker, as to the most convenient procedure to be followed to set up a committee to deal with the matter of an amplification system for this house. I should like to report to the house that after conferring with Your Honour, with the leader of the official opposition (Mr. Drew), the leader of the C.C.F. party (Mr. Coldwell) and the leader of the Social Credit party (Mr. Low) we find that the most convenient and expeditious way might be to set up a small striking committee to confer with Your Honour for the purpose of reporting a list of members to constitute that committee. I have prepared a motion of which I will give notice, which would read as follows:
That a special committee consisting of Messrs. Weir, Tremblay, Casselman, Knowles and Shaw be appointed to confer with Mr. Speaker, and with his assistance to prepare and report a list of members
to compose a select committee of the house to consider with Mr. Speaker the matter of an amplification system for this house, with power to send for persons and papers and report from time to time its findings and recommendations to the house.
I think that would be the most expeditious way of getting a committee set up and started at its work. Since this is noncontroversial, some time would be saved if I could have unanimous consent to make this motion now, seconded by the leader of the opposition.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the house to adopt the motion?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


Hon. Brooke Claxton (Minister of National Defence):: Yesterday the hon. member for
Calgary East (Mr. Harkness) asked why for the last two or three months the list of army promotions, retirements, transfers and so on has not appeared in the Canada Gazette. Publication of these lists has been held up during the last couple of months in order to arrive at a uniform system for the three services in view of the enactment of the National Defence Act and the proposed bringing into force of a complete new set of regulations for the three services. We have been working toward arriving at a uniform system of publication for the three services. That has now been worked out, and it is expected that the first list on a common basis will be issued shortly.



COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE


Mr. W. G. Weir (Portage-Neepawa) moved:: That the name of Mr. Macdonald (Edmonton East) be substituted for that of Mr. Decore on the special committee on the Dominion Elections Act.
That the name of Mr. Macdonald (Edmonton East) be substituted for that of Mr. Decore on the standing committee on public accounts.
That the name of Mr. Laing be substituted for that of Mr. Cannon on the standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
[Stage Direction]
Weights and Measures Act THE ROYAL ASSENT
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received the following communication:
Ottawa, May 31, 1951
Sir:
I have the honour to inform you that the Honourable Patrick Kerwin, judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, acting as Deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber on Thursday, the 31st May, at 5.45 p.m., for the purpose of giving the royal assent to certain bills.
I have the honour to be, sir,
Your obedient servant,
J. F. Delaute,
Assistant Secretary to the Governor General



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ACT


Right Hon. C. D. Howe (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved: for leave to introduce Bill No, 355, respecting weights and measures.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Explain.


Mr. G. J. Mcllraith (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Trade and Commerce):: The weights and measures bill was given first reading in this house on April 6, and was withdrawn on May 18. The provisions in that bill for setting up the primary standards of weights and measures were removed from it, as was explained at the time the bill was withdrawn, and put in a separate bill intituled: An act respecting units of length and mass. That bill has been passed by the house. The bill now before the house is a re-introduction of the original weights and measures bill which was given first reading on April 6, with the changes consequent upon the withdrawal of the provisions for the primary standards of weights and measures.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS


Mr. Pearkes:: 1.	At which T.C.A. airports are restaurant or coffee bar facilities provided?
2.	Under what conditions are these restaurants or coffee bars operated?
3.	What companies or individuals are granted the concessions?


Mr. Benidickson:: There are no Trans-Canada Air Lines airports. All airports at which Trans-Canada Air Lines make regular scheduled landings are operated by the Department of Transport, the Department of

National Defence or municipalities. It is presumed that the reference is to airports at which Trans-Canada Air Lines make regular scheduled stops.
Under agreement with the Department of Transport, restaurant facilities are available to air line passengers on the following airports operated by the department:
Toronto, Ontario (Malton airport). By lease to Aero Caterers Limited on basis of annual rental charge plus monthly sum calculated upon rate of 5 per cent of gross revenue after allowing for deduction of excise tax.
Montreal, P.Q. (Dorval airport). By leases to Aero Caterers Limited, (a) Administration building-monthly rental, (b) Transatlantic building-monthly rental plus 5 per cent monthly of gross revenue. (c) Cafeteria building and Dorval inn-annual rental.
Sydney, N.S. By lease to Aero Caterers Limited'-monthly rental.
Gander, Newfoundland. By Department of Transport.


RENFREW MACHINERY COMPANY PLANT
Mr. Fulton:: 1.	Did the government or any agency thereof buy
the plant of the Renfrew Machinery Company at Renfrew, Ontario?	*
2.	H so, what is the total purchase price paid or payable by the government for the plant?
3.	To whom is this price payable?
4.	If the plant is not purchased outright, under what arrangement, if any, is the government concerned in its operations?
5.	What are the particulars of any such arrangement with respect to payment by or on behalf of the government in connection therewith to the original owners?
6.	Is the plant leased or to be leased to any other firm or persons? If so, to whom?
7.	If a corporation, who are the directors of the corporation, what are their respective positions, and by whom are the majority of shares held?
8.	What are the financial terms of the lease or other arrangement referred to in part 6 hereof?
9.	Was any commission paid by the government to any person involved in the transaction? If so, how much?


Mr. Mcllraith:: 1.	The plant of the Renfrew Machinery Company has been purchased by the Department of Defence Production.
2.	Total price is as follows: plant, $1,035,000; additional land, $50,000; equipment and machinery, $75,000; total $1,160,000.
3.	This price is payable to Renfrew Machinery Company.
4.	Not applicable.
5.	Payments by the government require 10 per cent cash with offer, with the balance cash on closing (120 days).

6.	It is expected that this plant will be occupied by Rotax Canada Limited on a management fee basis.
7.	Rotax Canada Limited is a totally owned subsidiary of Joseph Lucas Limited, of Birmingham, England, specialists in the manufacture of fuel system equipment for gas turbine engines.
The directors of Rotax Canada Limited are: president, A. B. Waring, Birmingham, England; vice-president and secretary, Jack Hulbert, Montreal, Quebec; director, W. E. Jones, Montreal, Quebec; director and legal counsel, E. B. Fairbanks, Montreal, Quebec. It is not known where the outstanding shares of Joseph Lucas Limited are held.
8.	Financial terms of the management fee lease remain to be negotiated.
9.	There was no commission paid by the government to any person in this transaction.


TITANIUM
Mr. Courtemanche:: 1.	What quantity of titanium is exported each year by Canada to the United States, and at what price?
2.	What quantity of titanium is imported each year by Canada from the United States after treatment, and at what price?
3.	What percentage of the titanium imported from the United States has previously been exported from Canada?
4.	Are there any reduction plants in Canada?
5.	If not, how many reduction plants would be needed to prevent importation and meet the requirements of the Canadian industry?
6.	How much would it cost approximately to build such plants?


George James McIlraith: It is not possible to answer this question in the form in which it is asked.
There are no integrated plants for producing titanium metal or other titanium bearing products from titanium ore in Canada.
One company is developing a large ilmenite deposit at Allard lake on the north shore of the lower St. Lawrence river. This company has a reduction plant at Sorel, Quebec, which will process this ore to recover pig iron and a high titanium bearing slag which will be shipped to the United States for processing into titanium oxide. As yet the company has only one furnace in operation and the operation has not proceeded beyond the pilot plant stage. Any shipments of titanium slag can as yet only be regarded as experimental to determine its amenability to treatment by the existing American plants.
Imports from the United States of titanium bearing products are in the form of titanium oxide for the paint and pigment industry and as ferro-titanium for ferro-alloying industry. A small amount of the imported
Questions
titanium oxide is converted into titanium metal, by Dominion Magnesium Company, of Renfrew, Ontario, and the major part of this metal is exported to the United States. As only one company is making titanium metal, figures of production are not available for publication.
Imports of titanium oxide are of the order of 15,000 tons a year, valued in excess of three million dollars. Approximately 500 tons of ferro-titanium of 25 per cent grade are consumed in Canada annually.
No actual estimate of the cost of erecting a plant capable of meeting Canadian demands for titanium dioxide is available.


CANADIAN ARSENALS LIMITED-EXPANSION PROGRAM
Mr. Noseworthy:: 1.	What is the estimated value of (a) land; (b) buildings; (c) machinery, taken over by the instrument radar division of Canadian Arsenals Limited from Research Enterprises Limited?
2.	What is the estimated cost of the proposed expansion program of Canadian Arsenals Limited at Leaside, as regards (a) land; (b) buildings; (c) machinery and equipment?


Mr. Mcllraith:: 1.	The initial cost of the land, building and machinery taken over by Canadian Arsenals was as follows:
(a)	Land	$	29,000
(b) Building	 785,000
(c)	Machinery, equipment and
fixtures	 1,703,000

At the time of the take-over from Research Enterprises, assets were being moved to and from various plants, with many items released to War Assets Corporation and others relocated where the machine tools, etc., would be used to best advantage and the above figures are submitted subject to these
qualifications.
2.
(a)	Land	$	74,000
(b)	Buildings, including services .. 2,431,833
(c) Machine tools and equipment 987,031



$3,492,864 INDIAN HEALTH SERVICES  MOOSE FACTORY HOSPITAL

Mr. Jutras:: 1.	How many hospitals and nursing stations are now operated by Indian health services?
2.	How many cases have been admitted to the new Moose Factory Indian hospital?
3568	HOUSE OF
Questions


Mr. Martin:: 1.	Eighteen departmental hospitals with 2,128 beds, 29 nursing stations with 159 beds, and 49 health centres which are used as dispensaries and headquarters for field nurses.
2.	To March 31, 1951, there were 232 admissions, including 153 tubercular patients.



CIVIL SERVICE-TELEPHONE OPERATORS

Mr. MacLean (Cape Breton North and Victoria):: When examinations are held by the civil service commission for telephone operators are (a) educational qualifications considered; (b) previous experience recognized; (c) screening carried out by Royal Canadian Mounted Police or other source?


Mr. Fournier (Hull):: (a) Yes. (b) Yes.
(c) Yes, in all cases where assignments are made to vulnerable positions.



INDIANS-BCG VACCINATION

Mr. Macnaughlon:: To what extent are BCG vaccination procedures being used among the Indians?


Mr. Martin:: BCG vaccination is being carried on extensively among the Indians in all provinces. During 1950 close to 5,000 Indians were vaccinated with BCG.



WORLD WAR II-INDEBTEDNESS TO CANADA BY ENEMY COUNTRIES

Mr. Catherwood:: 1.	What was the total amount of money, in dollars, owing to Canada by enemy nations at the close of world war II?
2.	What is the total amount of money, in dollars, owing to Canada by the same nations today?
3.	Has the government cancelled any of these debts?
4.	If so, to what nations, and in what amounts?


Mr. Sinclair:: 1.	Roumania, $24,329,262.40.
2.	Roumania, $24,329,262.40.
3.	No.
4.	Answered by No. 3.
Note. In addition to the principal sum referred to in the answers to questions Nos. 1 and 2, interest has remained unpaid since October 1, 1939.



UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE COMMISSION-STAFF

Mrs. Fairclough:: How many are employed by the unemployment insurance commission (a) male, (i) permanent; (ii) temporary; (b) female, (i) permanent; (ii) temporary?


Mr. Cote (Verdun-La Salle):: As at April 30, 1951, the following were employed by the unemployment insurance commission:	(a)


male: (i) permanent, 2,764; (ii) temporary, 1,169; (b) female: (i) permanent, 1,316; (ii) temporary, 1,720.



ARMED FORCES


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. George A. Drew (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct a question to the Minister of National Defence. Information I have received suggests it might be of interest to the house and to the people of Canada to know what arrangements are being made for the supplying to our armed forces in Korea and elsewhere, of Canadian cigarettes and other Canadian products of the kind which they would commonly use.


Brooke Claxton: I am glad of the opportunity
extended by the question of the leader of the opposition to say something about this matter. In the first place, it may be pointed out that the Canadian brigade group now forms a part of the first United Nations- commonwealth-division. The supplies for this group are furnished, like those for the other commonwealth forces, from United States sources. It would not be economical for us to have a separate supply line.
We do have the service of No. 426 squadron carrying special supplies, including mail and other amenities, to the Far East for our forces. Under existing arrangements Canadian cigarettes can be purchased from one of the manufacturers by residents in Canada and shipped by mail, tax free, to individual personnel in the theatre of operations. I understand that these arrangements are well worked out, and that shipments are rapid.
In the second place, it is also possible for Canadian cigarettes to be purchased by Canadian personnel through their own paymaster, but the supplies have to be forwarded from Canada. We are endeavouring to make arrangements whereby cigarettes, in addition to the supplies of other peculiarly Canadian products desired by the troops, will be immediately available out of stores arranged with the United Kingdom or United States authorities. If necessary, we shall set up our special Canadian agencies.


George Alexander Drew: Hon. members might be interested in a brief comment I received in a letter from a number of men who are serving in Korea which indicates that there may be reasons why civilian organizations could do something in this respect. The letter indicates that some of these cigarettes were being sent

to me-and I may say to the member for Fort William that I have not smoked them.
I quote one paragraph:
We are enclosing a sample ol some of the cigarettes we get. I believe you will agree with us as to their quality. We figure that if we keep smoking then we will all be back in Canada by the time our throats recover.
I know that is written in a humorous way, Mr. Speaker, and I welcome the explanation. It might be well if Canadians generally realized that it will be of considerable assistance to our troops overseas if civilian organizations do something about forwarding Canadian cigarettes and other things of that type to which the men are accustomed.


Brooke Claxton: I quite agree, Mr. Speaker. I believe the hon. member has sufficiently described the cigarettes in question to indicate that they are not Canadian. As a matter of fact, we have had a number of officers out there to make arrangements of this kind. We have to work with our friends in the United States and Great Britain in this regard, and they are very co-operative. It is a long way off, though. We hope to arrive at a satisfactory solution of the problem.


Mr. Cruickshank:: I should like to ask a supplementary question. Is there any truth in the rumour that Canadian soldiers in Korea are supplied with margarine? I want an answer.


Brooke Claxton: I do not know. We shall have to look into that.


George Alexander Cruickshank: It is a disgrace, and should be looked into.



BANK LOANS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. G. Diefenbaker (Lake Centre):: I wish to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Have there' been any recent discussions between representatives of the Bank of Canada and the chartered banks with regard to further restrictions on credit, particularly the margin on stock market transactions? If so, will the minister give the house a summary of what has taken place?


Hon. Douglas Abbott (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I understand that the governor of the Bank of Canada had one of his periodical discussions or meetings with the general managers of the chartered banks a week or ten days ago. There are no further restrictions on credit. The purpose of the meeting was generally to review the result of the bank's policy in that connection, but the credit policies of the banks continue to be based
Inquiries of the Ministry on the principle set out in the statement issued on February 22, I think it was, by the Bank of Canada following the meeting held on that date with the chartered banks.	,
As to the margin transactions in stocks, the Montreal and Toronto stock exchanges established margin requirements of fifty per cent on marketable securities. The banks voluntarily undertook to maintain similar requirements, and those limits are still in effect.


Mr. Adamson:: Have they not been in effect for some time?


Douglas Charles Abbott: My recollection with respect to margin requirements is that they were in effect shortly prior to February 22, and that, following the discussions which the governor had with the chartered banks, the banks adopted the same policy.


Agar Rodney Adamson: I think it was before that.


Douglas Charles Abbott: That may be so. It is quite possible they did it concurrently with the action taken by the stock exchanges. From memory I cannot say just what the situation was.



INQUIRY FOR RETURN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. H. O. White (Middlesex East):: On April 16 an order for return was passed in this house on a motion standing in my name for the production of papers. Those papers have not been forthcoming. May I expect them soon?


Alphonse Fournier: Were those papers with regard to the purchase of a building in London?


Harry Oliver White: Yes.


Alphonse Fournier: I initialled them yesterday. They will be tabled within a few days.


Harry Oliver White: Thank you.



OLD AGE PENSIONS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. Donald M. Fleming (Eglinton):: I wish to direct two questions to the Prime Minister with reference to the amendment of the British North America Act to give parliament authority to enact legislation with regard to old age pensions. In view of the fact that the bill for this purpose was adopted yesterday in the House of Commons
3570	HOUSE OF
Inquiries of the Ministry at Westminster, when is it expected that the bill will be adopted in the House of Lords, receive royal assent and come into effect? And how soon thereafter does the government intend to introduce a bill in this house with regard to the matter?


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, we have had no official information as yet about the procedure at Westminster. I read in the newspapers that the House of Commons had disposed of the three readings of the bill, and that it had gone to the House of Lords; but we have no other information: than that which we get from the commonwealth relations office that all stages will be expedited in both houses. No forecast was made as to when the proceedings would be completed. Just as soon as possible after they are completed, I expect to have a statement to make to the house with respect to Canadian legislation consequential upon the amendment.



NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. Lionel Chevrier (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, recently the hon. member for Vancouver-Quadra (Mr. Green) asked a question as to the accuracy of a certain press release concerning the North Atlantic planning board for ocean shipping. I have now had an opportunity to read the announcements in the press concerning the NATO plans for shipping in the event of war. I find that the communique reported is that authorized by the defence shipping authority following its London meeting which took place in the latter part of April of this year. The London meeting was attended by delegates from eleven of the twelve governments signatory to the North Atlantic treaty. The only absentee was Luxembourg, which was represented by Belgium.
I find that there is very little I can add to the press statements. The house will understand, of course, that the details of the plan are of such a nature that they cannot be made public at this time. Perhaps the best answer I could give would be to send over to the hon. member the text of the press release which was approved, which is substantially the same but with some modifications to which he referred.


Mr. Green:: Would the minister have any abjection to making that press release part of his statement?


Lionel Chevrier: No. I shall be glad to table this text. It is entitled: "Text of press statement prepared by the North Atlantic planning board for ocean shipping".


Howard Charles Green: Perhaps it could be included in the minister's statement and appear in Hansard.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Lionel Chevrier: I was simply saying that I should be glad to send it over to my hon. friend. But if it is the wish of the house that I should table it, I shall be glad to do so.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Howard Charles Green: The reason I make that request is this. An extensive statement has been made, I think, by Mr. Justice Clyne, the Canadian representative at this conference; also there have been these statements in the press. We have had, however, no statement whatever in the house about the matter; it is of the utmost importance, because it affects all of Canada's deep-sea shipping. If this release sets out the full picture, then it should be given to the house, and could be printed in Hansard with the minister's answer.


Lionel Chevrier: I have not seen the report made by Mr. Justice Clyne, but I am sure it wouldi not go beyond that which was approved in London by the NATO planning board for ocean shipping. In any event I could not put this release on Hansard unless I had the unanimous consent of the house. If I have that consent, I shall be glad to do so. If not, I am sending it over to my hon. friend.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it agreed that this statement should appear on Hansard?


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some hon. Members:: No.


Mr. Speaker:: Apparently there is not
unanimous consent.'


Howard Charles Green: Then I would ask the minister to table it. I cannot understand why there would be objection to putting an important statement of this kind on Hansard.


Lionel Chevrier: I am in the hands of the house.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Dion in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, $336,942.
Mr. Larson:: There are just one or two points which I feel should be put on record at this time. We have voted $5 billion for defence to be spent over the next three years. This is a large sum of money, but it is an important thing for us to do because we must keep our country secure in times like these. However, one of several things

could happen. We may be in the middle of a war before the three years are up, or we may have reached some sort of amicable settlement with our potential enemies, in which event there would be little likelihood of war. Should the situation continue as it is now, the things that we have been building with the money we have been spending would no doubt be becoming obsolete, and the expenditures made on them would have to be repeated. If we continue to tax ourselves as we are doing, and if we have to continue to put all our energies into this type of thing for the next twenty or thirty years, our potential enemy, communism, will have won its point. It would break us financially. If we could make our position safe through the NATO organization and the efforts we are making ourselves, then we would defeat our potential enemy, communism, provided that we could continue to develop our own country along with what we are doing in matters of defence. In manufactures we are well developed, but in agriculture there are certain things that are likely to suffer. But there is one project which has been considered by the federal government, and on which it has spent a great deal of time and money, that I hope will not be delayed because of the situation in which we find ourselves today. I refer to the South Saskatchewan river project.
People in Ontario, where there is all this beautiful greenery, rivers and all the amenities of summer life, probably do not realize what the condition of the country is around Outlook and south of Saskatoon. People are trying to grow wheat and field crops under very adverse conditions. Many areas do not produce enough to give them a living, and we in this House of Commons are faced with such things as the Prairie Farm Assistance Act and direct relief. I have some figures on how much money has been put into this kind of thing. In the area I believe some $42 million have been put into relief and some $14 million into P.F.A. Instead of the federal government putting out money in this way, had some sort of irrigation development been carried on, had the government assisted in the erection of the dam, the result would have been a real capital asset to the people of Canada.
I hope the chairman will not mind if I quote extensively from information that has been compiled by the Department of Agriculture, because it gives a good many figures, and I should like to have them right on the record. The capital cost of this whole project will be about $103,700,000. The sum of $68,600,000 would go to the actual construction of the dam itself and the reservoir. The irrigation distribution system would cost
Supply-Agriculture
about $19,500,000; land improvement, and deficit period-that is, the period until it starts to operate-$5,600,000; and the power plant that would supply the power would cost $10 million.
It has been proposed that the federal government put into this project $68,600,000, to impound the water and construct the dam and the works that necessarily go with it. This expenditure would be spread over a period of ten years. In the first few years the cost would be low, but it would be accelerated toward the end when the major works were installed. The province and the farmers would pay the balance of $35,100,000. It should be remembered that the engineers of the federal government have determined that this project would be feasible. They have investigated it, and they know it will work. The investigation cost us a lot of money.
The government of the province of Saskatchewan seemed to doubt whether the project would be feasible, but I understand that they have now decided they can go into it and that it will be a real asset to the people. They are prepared to lay out the money. The power plant, to cost $10 million, will be built by the province, and they will take the power. Also the province will complete the irrigation works, at a cost of another $25 million. The water stored would provide irrigation for 500,000 acres, of which 431,000 are good irrigable land. The population would be increased tremendously on that type of land, and the assurance of a decent livelihood would be increased tremendously as well.
There is a sufficient flow of water to develop 375 million kilowatt hours of energy, firm-that is, firm power that could be guaranteed; and another 100 million of secondary energy at times when the water flow is high.
The industrial life of Saskatchewan has been impeded owing to the fact that we did not have the plant to produce enough power to give industry all the power it needed. With this project we would have plenty of power. The provincial authorities, through the power commission, say that they could use that power.
The irrigation system itself would increase the number of farmers on this area from 1,245 to 2,700. On this basis it is expected that the irrigation system itself would meet the cost of operation. The power commission, on the other hand, would value the firm energy at some 5J mills and the secondary energy at 3 mills at the dam site. The gross value would be $2,088,000, and the net value $1,300,000. These facts leave no doubt that the irrigation and the power plant would carry themselves.



J572 HOUSE OF COMMONS

[Stage Direction]
Supply-Agriculture
The climate around the area to be irrigated is very much the same as it is in the Lethbridge irrigation district, where the irrigation cost was $57 an acre. The province of Alberta attempted to carry it in a kind of co-operative way, I believe, without too much success, because the increase in produce and the power would not be enough to pay the expenses. The $57 an acre could not be borne by the farmers; therefore in order to make the project possible it will be necessary for the federal government to put up enough money to create this reservoir. Under the P.F.A. legislation it has been pretty well decided that it is the federal government's job to impound the water, provided that the water is used.
The Meek report indicates some of the changes in the country around this irrigation project, the St. Mary storage project. It says:
In 1924, when the Lethbridge northern district was first irrigated, there were only about 300 families in the area. Now about 900 families occupy farms on the project.
Where these people formerly lived was semi-arid country. Now they are living in a country that has trees, flowers and community life. They are living close together. They are farming more intensively, and their lives are more or less comparable to life on farms around Ottawa where there is plenty of moisture. The community advantages resulting from irrigation deserve special emphasis. The report goes on:
The social and community advantages resulting from irrigation deserve special emphasis, though these benefits can only be partly indicated statistically. These advantages were observed by the committee on all projects visited, and a good example is found in the Lethbridge northern irrigation district. Here an area of some 360 square miles, equivalent to ten townships, has been transformed in less than two decades from sparsely settled prairie, subject to periodical crop failures and soil drifting, to a thriving community of farm homes, towns and villages.
In less than two decades the area has been transformed from the kind of conditions I have been describing to the kind that you see around this city. The population increased from 1,500 to 10,000, thereby making it possible to improve the schools and to establish rural electrification, and for the people to have all the other things that make life on the farm more pleasant.
It is unthinkable that a project such as this should not be proceeded with. I will admit that it is costly. But if you take a year at a time, a few millions of dollars each year would transform that whole area from a semi-arid region into one of which Canada could be proud.
There is another point I should like to stress. As Canada developed it was found
	a * : 1
necessary to develop the west, and as the west developed, Canada became a greater nation. There have been many complaints about our talking about wheat; but when it is realized that we send out of the country each year 300 million bushels of wheat and bring back the money-nearly half a billion dollars-to the farms in the western provinces, where there is very little manufacturing, and when we know that nearly all that money eventually goes to industries in central Canada,, we appreciate the importance of western Canada to the rest of the country.
The development of the west has been an important factor in the industrial development of central Canada-indeed in the entire development of this country as a nation. I would urge that this project be given the go-ahead signal immediately, so that we may open our arms to more of the world's population. On the basis of this project alone, we could probably double the population in Saskatchewan within twenty-five years. I do not see how anyone could urge that a project such as this should be delayed. All such developments should be proceeded with immediately.
Mr. Coldwell:: 
John George Diefenbaker: Mr. Chairman, I join with the two hon. members who have spoken in support of a project that is necessary, agriculturally, to the survival of central Saskatchewan. This matter has been argued on previous occasions, and the facts have been recapitulated by the hon. member for Kindersley. Without regard to party considerations or strife, all of us from Saskatchewan are united in the demand that this work be proceeded with.
The population of Saskatchewan has been decreasing for the last twelve or fifteen years. In considerable measure that decrease is due to drought and crop failure.


Mr. Stewart (Yorkton):: And the C.C.F.
government.


John George Diefenbaker: Well, I never like to place so heavy a responsibility upon any government. I have been trying to deal with the matter entirely apart from considerations of that kind.
This project is necessary to the future not only of Saskatchewan, but of Canada as a whole. Industry will not be decentralized as it should be unless power is developed in agricultural areas. In Saskatchewan we have available for development hundreds of thousands of horsepower. We have before us the example of the government of the United States, which in recent years has endeavoured to instil into its people the realization of a need for the decentralization of industry.
Without industrial development in Saskatchewan we begin to wonder how our population will be maintained. As the hon. member for Kindersley said, from time to time, from as far back as 1775, when the first records were available, vast areas have been almost denuded of crops as a result of drought conditions in the southeasterly section of the province, extending from Saskatoon.
This piece of work is necessary in the interests of the industrialization of Saskatchewan. It is necessary to provide an assured and continuing agricultural income. It has been found feasible, and it will be self-liquidating. It will assure a development never before experienced in Saskatchewan, and will pay dividends in national development.
I wish to deal with farm income in 1950 as it affected not only my own province but the dominion as a whole. The incomes of
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Canadian farmers went down to $271 million less than they were in 1949. Cash income in Saskatchewan in 1950 was $407,600,000 as compared with $560,700,000 in 1949, or a drop of $153 million. In considerable measure that decreased income in Saskatchewan is the result of climatic conditions the effect of which would have been considerably if not entirely removed if this irrigation plan and power development on the South Saskatchewan river had been proceeded with.
In Alberta, farm income fell during the year by $92 million, and in Manitoba by $46,800,000. I rise for the purpose of bringing to the attention of the minister a question that is of prime importance to western farmers and concerns the prosperity of the country as a whole. I realize that the marketing of farm products, including wheat, is the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Commerce, but the production of those commodities is the responsibility of the Department of Agriculture. Over 200 million bushels of wheat are being marketed under the international wheat agreement. At the present time the price paid under that agreement is about 37 cents less per bushel than the wheat board is receiving from the sales elsewhere of class II wheat. The loss has already run into $10 million, and it is bound to increase if the world remains as it is today, in a state of three-quarters peace or, as described by the London Economist, as a world of fear wherein wheat as a major commodity of sustenance will become in greater demand. The present disparity of 37 cents between the price under the international wheat agreement and what the farmer would otherwise receive is likely to increase if the demand continues, with a correspondingly greater loss to the western farmer.
The international wheat agreement contains a provision for revision of prices upward under certain -circumstances. All the signatories to the agreement are nations which have joined together to meet the onrush of communism. All realize that there can be no assured unity until all the peoples of the nations joined together in this effort are -united and have a high morale. There -is a provision in the agreement for the prices that will prevail during the next few years. In
1950-	51 the maximum price will be $1.80; in
1951-	52 the maximum price will be $1.80, and there will be the same maximum price in
1952-	53, when the agreement will end. In 1952-53 the minimum, as compared with today's minimum price fixed under the agreement, is 20 cents lower than the first year's minimum price.
With other hon. members I have urged the Minister of Trade and Commerce to make

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application to the nations signatory to this agreement with a view to securing an upward revision of prices. Unless there is such a revision, the wheat farmer is going to become more and more disgruntled as the days go by and the price of class II wheat increases, provided that world conditions continue in their present fearful state.
The international wheat agreement contains a provision which I believe allows for a revision upward or downward as the case may be. Article VI deals with prices, and section 5 of that article reads:
5. If any exporting or importing country represents to the executive committee that any price equivalent established under paragraph 2, 3, or 4 of this article is,-[DOT]
Those are the paragraphs which establish the price equivalents for bulk wheat:
-in the light of current transportation or exchange rates or market premiums or discounts, no longer fair, the executive committee shall consider the matter and may, in consultation with the advisory committee on price equivalents, make such adjustment as it considers advisable.
I submit that since the agreement was entered into in 1950 there have been increases in transportation costs in Canada; there have been increases in freight rates and also in other costs which might be considered by the executive committee in deciding whether or not an adjustment should be made. I realize that the Minister of Agriculture is not in a position to act because of the portfolio he holds, but I urge him to appeal to the Minister of Trade and Commerce on behalf of the Canadian people to make an application for a revision upward. Conditions cannot go on as they are, the farmer being faced with increasing costs of production while being required to sell his wheat at a price that as time goes on will represent less and less profit under the international wheat agreement.
The answer given the other day by the Minister of Trade and Commerce was that there were thirty-seven importing countries and only three exporting countries which were signatories to the agreement. I believe that if those forty countries, whether exporting or importing, are as anxious as we are to mobilize to the utmost in order to preserve ourselves against the potential communist challenge, they would toe just as anxious as we are to do everything possible to remove any injustices under that international agreement.
The Minister of Agriculture represents a western constituency, and I know he is desirous that prosperity be maintained on the prairies, without which there cannot be any Canadian prosperity. I ask him to use his prestige and influence upon the Minister

of Trade and Commerce in an effort to have him do what up to the present he has not shown any desire to do. Indeed, he adopted the attitude, when asked a question about this matter, that there was no use in doing anything, because after all one would be too optimistic to believe that anything could be done.
The Canadian dollar has fallen considerably in purchasing power since the agreement was entered into. I have not the exact' figures, but, speaking from memory, at the time the agreement was entered into the index for Canadian commodity prices was about 160, whereas today it is approximately 180. There has been a pronounced increase in the cost of the commodities which the farmer must buy. This is a matter that transcends any political considerations in the western provinces. As I see it, it is a matter that demands a united front on the part of all the western provinces to the end that at least an application be made for revision. Whether or not action can be forced we do not know, but we can at least try.
Surely we have the right to ask that the Minister of Trade and Commerce shall not be permitted to stand in the way of what would be fair and just. There is not a farmer in Alberta, Manitoba or Saskatchewan to whom I have spoken who is not in favour of an upward revision in prices. The time is now, not in 1953, when the agreement will be concluded. We must take action now if we are to assure the maintenance of a high degree of production, which, as I see it, cannot be done unless the morale of the western farmer is kept up. If that morale is to be maintained he must have at least the hope that something definite will be done to revise upward the price of wheat under the international wheat agreement.
When that agreement was made, many felt that it was an excellent thing, for it assured a degree of security. At that time no one could have predicted just how serious the world situation would become; and it is getting more serious day by day. Having regard to the changed circumstances I feel that the Minister of Agriculture should join hon. members in all parts of this house from the western provinces-and we have always received the support of the east when we have had a just case-to insist that something be done to the end that prices toe placed upon a basis that is fair and just to Canadian wheat farmers.


Mr. Thatcher:: Before discussing the main topic in which I am interested I should like to associate myself with the remarks just made by the hon. member for Lake Centre. Certainly the people of Saskatchewan believe

that a request should be made to have wheat prices under the international wheat agreement revised upward. It may be that the purchasing countries concerned will not agree, but certainly no harm would be done by attempting an upward revision.
I should like also to associate myself with the remarks of the hon. member for Kinders-ley. During this session I have been pleased to hear a large number of members from [DOT]Saskatchewan on the government side speak in favour of the South Saskatchewan irrigation project. It is something we in this party, together with hon. members of other parties, have been advocating for many years. This afternoon the people of Saskatchewan are waiting anxiously for the remarks the Minister of Agriculture will probably make in a few minutes, indicating whether or not the project will be proceeded with this year. There have been rumours and newspaper reports that the cabinet has been discussing the matter, and that the minister has been trying to sell his colleagues on the project. I hope he has been successful, because, as I said a moment ago, there is nothing more needed in Saskatchewan today.
I was speaking to the hon. member for Qu'Appelle the other day, just after he had returned from the west. He told me that last week the dust was blowing so thick you could hardly see. In the plane in which he was travelling ten or twelve people were ill as a result of the high winds; and of course at this time of year in the dust bowl when the wind is high the dust is very bad. Often at this time of year I have driven out in my car and have been unable to see beyond the engine. Frequently you have to drive with your lights on in the middle of the day. This irrigation project would not change that completely, of course, but certainly it would go a long way toward alleviating it.
I am not going into the advantages of the project; everyone in this house knows them. If anything is needed to give our province stability, it is this irrigation project. I know of nothing else in Canada today, with the possible exception of the St. Lawrence waterway development, which is more important or which deserves greater consideration from this house.
I was interested in reading some old Hansards the other night to see the reasons that have been advanced since I have been in parliament for not proceeding with the South Saskatchewan development. I realize that no one wants this project more than the Minister of Agriculture, but either he has not been able to sell it to his colleagues, or something has always happened to prevent its commencement. In 1946 the reason given for
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not proceeding was the shortage of men and materials. In 1947 the lack of progress was blamed on inability to locate a suitable dam site. In 1948 the reason was that eastern members had to be sold on the project. Last year the reason was unique; the minister made the statement that we must have assurance from somebody that an organization would be set up to utilize the water and to pay a share of the cost sufficient to ensure that they would take some responsibility for seeing that the work is carried on. Then he went on to point out that the provincial government should bear a share of the cost. Up to that time I had never heard the suggestion that the province would have to pay part of the cost, and I think that was a harsh proposal, in view of the financial position of Saskatchewan. Nevertheless our provincial government has now agreed to that plan and is willing to bear roughly one-third of the cost; I believe it has indicated that fact to the minister. Therefore I can see no reason why something should not be done this year. After all, we are going to spend $3,700 million this year. Surely it should not be hard to find the $10 million that is needed to get this project started.
I remember that in one of his speeches out west the minister said we could make this area of Saskatchewan the Essen of Canada; and if that could be done, no one would be more delighted than I. That statement was made just before an election, but still I think it was a reasonable thing to say, and something which could be accomplished. I believe the citizens of Saskatchewan and the west generally, whether they be Liberals, Conservatives, C.C.F.'ers or Social Crediters, will be disappointed if the minister gets up today and tells us that, in view of our defence and other needs, once again this much needed undertaking will have to be postponed. The excuse that men and materials are not available will no longer suffice. That is the reason we were given back in 1946, and it seems to me if such an excuse is given today we shall be going around in a vicious circle. If we do not proceed at once, and war should come, we may go on for decades without getting this development. Therefore I hope the minister will announce that it is to be proceeded with at once.


Mr. Low:: In connection with the development of the South Saskatchewan project, I want to indicate how the neighbours of that province feel about that development. We in southern Alberta have witnessed the transformation that can be made through the proper use of irrigation. I lived in a very dry area where we were never certain of crop returns at any time. My father was

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among those who developed the first irrigation system in our province, the old Alberta railway and irrigation system, and I recall the many weeks he was away from home working on that project. I mention this only because I want to convey to hon. members the fact that I have witnessed the change that can be brought about when water is made available. I saw that dry section of the country become almost a beautiful garden; and I also saw the coffers of the provincial and federal governments enriched by the returns from that land which produced more abundantly than ever before. When I think of what happened in southern Alberta, and when I think also of the present situation in the province of Saskatchewan, our sister province, I cannot help but express my hope that the government of Canada will find it possible to lend a substantial hand in the building of the dam across the South Saskatchewan river so as to provide the much needed water for those parched and thirsty lands in Saskatchewan. I am certain that if the federal government does so that inhabitants of the sister province of Alberta will support the effort. I feel that wherever worthy projects of this kind can be seen, it should not matter in what province the development is to take place. We, as Canadians, must look at it as Canadians. I am speaking now I think for the people of the province of Alberta when I say that we welcome the development of water resources for the province of Saskatchewan. We will certainly give financial support, through taxation measures or any others that need be, to see that that development takes place.
I recall, Mr. Chairman, while I was in the provincial government quite a number of years ago now, along with some of my colleagues, taking the first step towards the conservation of the east slope of the Rockies in order that we might conserve our water resources and make it possible for the province of Saskatchewan-possibly western Manitoba-to have a share in the run-off waters from these slopes. Serious Are hazards had beset these areas for many years. Some of them had been almost denuded' of trees, and we were not certain whether there would be water. I believe it was about 1937 I came down and discussed the matter with officials of the federal government with a view to establishing some form of co-operation between the province and the dominion so that we could conserve the forests on the east slope of the watershed. I am pleased to say, Mr. Chairman, that the federal government came to realize the importance of that conservation. They did set up the Eastern Rockies forest conservation board, which is

doing a fine job. They have made it possible for the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan- perhaps some in Manitoba-to be assured of water resources in the future. Not only did that commission take steps to conserve the watershed, but it decided upon a division of the waters as between Alberta and Saskatchewan. With that division assured, it seems to me that the next step ought to be the development of a dam and reservoir so that the people of Saskatchewan might be able to realize what we have already realized in a good many areas in Alberta, that we can have abundant production in those sunny areas with the rich soil if we can get the water. I join with the member for Kindersley, and others who have spoken, in expressing the hope the federal government will see its way clear to doing something towards the development of water resources in the province of Saskatchewan at an early date.
I now wish, Mr. Chairman, to say a word about this question of the international wheat agreement. I do not expect to go into that too fully at the moment. I would say that the member for Lake Centre made a pertinent and reasonable request. Now is the time to ask for a review of the whole agreement. I should not like to see the same thing happen with respect to the international wheat agreement as happened in connection with the British wheat agreement. If we leave it too long, however, there is likely to develop much the same dissatisfaction amongst the farmers of Canada. I must say right here, Mr. Chairman, that the farmers of western Canada that are affected by this long-term agreement are not asking for anything unreasonable when they ask for a revision, because world wheat prices, at least in some cases, are thirty-eight cents above the international wheat agreement price. That means, of course, that the farmers of the country, when they are forced to sell most of their wheat under the international wheat agreement at a figure that represents a considerable loss, feel that now is the time to ask for an upward revision.
Then, one should remember that the farmers of Canada, who number not more than twenty-five or twenty-seven per cent of the total population of this country, are today still making it possible for the Canadian people to have cheaper bread than they would have if the wheat were all sold at world prices, or somewhat above the international wheat agreement figure.' The farmers are selling to the millers of Canada at a rate that means that the farmers, one-third of the population, are subsidizing cheap bread for the rest of the population of Canada. That

situation ought not to exist. It was true all during the time the British wheat agreement was in force, and the farmers of Canada lost not less than $48 million. Many people, of course, believe they lost a good many millions more than that. The important thing is that this is the time to ask for a review of the agreement, and as the member for Lake Centre said, to ask for some upward revision of the price.
On going into supply on May 1 I raised the whole question of the administration of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I pointed out particularly some ways in which the administration of that act was discriminating against certain farmers in the Peace River country. Lands that are not marginal but perfectly good farm lands, and which in normal years would produce a good crop, last year were subjected to two very tragic events. In the first place a wide strip of the country was riddled with hail, and the crops did not recover because it came too late in the season. Then, we were visited with a heavy frost early in the season, with the result that in a large part of the country the yields from the lands were below what would be necessary to qualify for a prairie farm assistance payment.
Now, because many of these farmers hold land under what is called a crown lease agreement, as a result of the amendment which was put through this house in 1950 they are prevented from getting benefits under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I am sure I do not need to review the situation for the minister. He was here the day I spoke about it. I am just asking the minister if he would indicate, when he speaks, whether or not it would be possible to make some change in the act, so as to enable these farmers who are holding leases on the ten-year term to get benefits from the act. Each year they are paying their one per cent contribution, and they feel that they have been discriminated against in this last year because they were barred from any of the benefits under the act.


Mr. Knight:: Mr. Chairman, owing to the geographical position of my constituency I could hardly be expected to keep silent during the course of this debate. I shall not add much to it in the way of argument because I believe the matter has been discussed time and again in committees like this. It has been discussed time and again in my hearing by the Minister of Agriculture in his various speeches throughout the province of Saskatchewan. I am thinking particularly of the time when I began to take more interest in those things, probably back in 1944, and I
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remember quite vividly some of his speeches. I have referred to some of them on a previous occasion in this chamber. I do not want in any way to taunt the minister in regard to what one might consider to be breach of promise in regard to this particular construction. I believe it is probably true, as we have heard today, that the minister has been pressing for the construction of this particular dam. As someone else has done, I shall say that I hope that is a fact and that in his effort he will be successful.
This is not a party matter, Mr. Chairman. I should like to congratulate my friend the hon. member for Kindersley upon his speech and upon his approach to the matter in this chamber. The hon. member for Moose Jaw has, I think, disposed of most of the arguments which have been advanced against the construction of this dam. I have said something about the geographical situation of my own city. I might supplement that by saying this, and I think it is perhaps more true in the west than it is in the east, particularly in the part of the west from which I come: the prosperity of the people in the city-not only businessmen but workers-depends upon the prosperity of the farmers, not necessarily those in the immediate vicinity but those even a long distance away, because distances in those provinces are great.
There is something sentimental about the way in which prairie dwellers look upon the matter of water. Down in the east here, people do not think too much about water because, I suppose, they get too much of it; at least, that is my own impression. The Saskatchewan river wends its slow way along, not far distant from where I live in the city of Saskatoon. My hon. friends from the east may have some difficulty in believing it, but on every fair summer Sunday afternoon- and we have many of them in that province -long rows of cars draw up along the north end of Spadina crescent and simply sit there in order to watch the water running over the dam. That dam might seem to have no specific use and people often wondered why it was built. My own impression is that it was built partially at least to give relief work back in the years of depression. At any rate, it is there and it is a little bit of running water and it adds to the beauty of our city. Saskatchewan people like to look at running water.
There are so many stories about drought that I am almost tempted to tell one or two- some of them are humorous-but I think perhaps it would be wasting the time of the committee. I am interested in irrigation and I am interested in what my friend the hon. member for Peace River has said about

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Alberta. One of the first jobs I ever had in Canada-and I think it was back in 1910, if I remember aright-was driving a team of horses and a scraper on an irrigation ditch which was being constructed out of the Bow river in the province of Alberta somewhere -I am not sure of the vicinity-near the village of Brant not far from Strathmore where the Canadian Pacific Railway people had that fine herd of Holstein cows. I do not know whether or not they have it there now. I am thinking now about our own people looking at water and the influence which it has, or which the lack of it has, in our lives on the prairies. I remember those Indian braves, on their way to the stampede. I was not fortunate; I could not go to the stampede because I had to drive my team with a plow breaking up one of the quarter sections which the Canadian Pacific Railway sold as ready-made farms or under some such title to Americans. The people of the United States were so enamoured of the success of irrigation in their own country that when they were able to come up into Canada and when they were offered land at $75 an acre- they said: Is this land irrigated? Irrigated land at $75 an acre?-they were prepared to buy it. I hope they made out well on their investment. I often wondered about the success of that project, because they were breaking land, some of which was fairly rough; and I was wondering how the grain would ripen in the bottom of the valley as compared with that on the tops of the hills in the same section.
I remember as I was plowing along there, with six horses on a gang plow at that particular time, I used to watch those Indians from the Blackfoot reserve pass on their way to the Calgary stampede, and boylike, I envied them. I noticed how they would camp alongside the irrigation ditch. Those Indian braves would often stand on one foot-I do not know why-with a bright blanket around their shoulders, while the ladies in the tribe -that is not the name we generally use- would unload the. democrats, light the fire and proceed to prepare supper. I envied the Indian braves for that, because I had to cook my own supper.
Perhaps that is enough of reminiscence. I merely want to say that we in the west love water. We go to it on every possible occasion. Prairie people, when they go for a holiday or a week-end vacation, go to a lake. Unfortunately we are obliged to go farther and farther in order to get to our lakes because the water level-largely owing to our own foolishness, I think-is becoming lower and lower; and on the bed of many of

the lakes which I knew as a boy, and on which I shot ducks as a boy, oats are now being grown; and the tourist business in that particular district at least is no more.
I think one would have great temerity to say that the greatest problem the world is faced with is not that of world peace. I had better not say that, because it is a statement that might be challenged in various quarters. But I will say that an equally great problem is that of growing food for the people of the nations of the world. I do not think that we can expect to live on this island of security here where plenty of land is available for the growing of food while at the same time thousands of people are starving in other parts of the world.
You know, we are a wasteful people. I think of ourselves in the west. I have seen a Prince Edward Island farmer come out there, take a look at the way we drive around our fields and sometimes drive the binder close to the fence; we do not even bother coming back upon it. He will say to us "You fellows waste more grain than we would grow on our whole farm".
It occurs to me that there are small acreages of wild land all across this country which European people or Oriental people would be delighted to use. For instance, the Greeks can be seen coming down from the mountains with their mules, with the pannier on each side filled with lemons and oranges grown on a half-acre patch somewhere up on the side of the mountain. Or you can go to the hills of Scotland, or to my native Ireland, and you will find people walking along there, plowing with one horse on a slope where they could not use two, walking in the space between the stones, plowing those little fields no bigger than this chamber, hedged around with piles of stone that through the centuries they have picked off the land. Farming under those conditions is subsistence farming, it is true; but at least it is a subsistence, and many of the peoples of the world have not that.
I suggest that one of our greatest problems is how we are to grow food for the increasing population of the world. That takes me back to Saskatchewan. I think the greatest problem in Saskatchewan is the tendency to depopulate that province through the mechanization of farm operations. I am not suggesting that we should go back to the two-horre team or to the walking plow. We must advance. We cannot turn the clock of progress back, but we have to change something, because the population in these western provinces-I mean the prairie provinces-is tending to decrease. I do not

mean that it is decreasing over-all, but the farm population is decreasing because fewer and fewer men are needed to farm those acres. I remember when we used to thresh, and I am sure the minister has seen lots of outfits that I could describe with their old Reeves steam engine, which used to have a twenty-six man crew, a cook, a bull cook, strawboss, stook team men, spike pitchers and field pitchers, twenty-six or more men in all. Did I hear the minister interject?


Mr. Gardiner:: I was just saying to the
hon. member for Fort William that he and I used to fire the engine.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: Yes, with straw, no doubt,
I have not done that job, but I have done most of the others. The point I want to make is that it took anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-two men to do the work that an old man and a boy-and by the way most of the farmers in Saskatchewan are pretty old in their average years-can do today. As a matter of fact, they can do more work than the whole of us did years ago all put together. What does it mean in the life of a province; what does it mean in the life of the population? Here you have a great new province with thousands and thousands of miles of roads to be developed. How are they to be developed? Only through the payment of taxes, only by population. You have your schools to run, and all the rest of it. We have just about reached the limit of the depopulation of the country through mechanization, and if we are to restore that population, or restore any of it, we have to get a different type of farming. Well, somebody says that we have relied on farm mechanized straight grain farming. We have been told for years that we should go into mixed farming. Down in this eastern part of the country and in Prince Edward Island they say:	Well, you crazy
people in Saskatchewan do not even keep a milch cow. The minister and some of the others of us know why we do not keep a milch cow in certain districts. We have seen, as I saw in 1933, a man coming home in his buggy with one bale of hay in the back of the buggy to keep the one surviving cow alive, the others having been shot because there was nothing for them to eat.
I do not want to paint that as being a picture of ordinary conditions in the province of Saskatchewan, but those conditions have occurred and they may occur again. There is a good deal of land in the Palliser triangle where you may graze a few head of cattle on a quarter-section in the summertime, but you cannot be assured of winter forage for them there.
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The experience of irrigation in Alberta near Lethbridge, I think it is, where the beet industry has started up and where beef steers are fed proves that if we had something like that in Saskatchewan it would at least provide winter forage for such cattle as we could graze in the summertime.
I do not think that this good market, this increase in the price of beef, is altogether a transitory thing. I think we may have it with us for some years to come. Irrigation would be a great encouragement to the cattle industry.
There are other problems of course. There is the question of flood control. We have abused the natural resources which we have. Our lands in places are becoming eroded. We have cut down the timber in the north which preserved the water level, and we have a situation of flooding in spring which has become all over this country a pretty serious matter. Just to the south of my own city we have what used to be a lake. It is no longer a lake in anything except name. It is called Pike lake. By the way, it used to be a summer resort, and it was only a few miles away. Now we have to go 175 miles or more to find good water. The farms in this area become flooded every year, and sometimes it is just touch and go whether the flood will subside in time so that the farmers will be able to put crops in. Again we have south of my city two or three little experiments in irrigation. Water is pumped out of the Saskatchewan river and ditched through the co-operation of one of the minister's divisions, the provincial government and the municipal authorities. These ditches can be damaged seriously by the effect of a flood.
I am told that one of the results of a properly controlled irrigation water development scheme in Saskatchewan would be to lessen the chance of those districts being flooded.
I have talked longer than I had intended to, because I had prepared absolutely nothing on the matter, but simply rose to endorse the arguments which have been advanced by other hon. members. I should like to take the position that this is not simply a plea for something which would assist in my own city, much as it would do that; nor is it just a plea for something which will help my own province, much as it would do that. I think it has reached the stage where this thing has become a national project, and I would plead with the minister, if that is necessary, to use that great influence he has upon his colleagues so that they may do something about it.

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We may say that something is being done, ft is true that surveys have been made there. Some reference has been made to elections. I have to be honest and say that before the last election there was a certain amount of activity. There were cars driving around there and surveyors were there. I am not saying that there was any connection between the two.


James Garfield Gardiner: They are still there.


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: They were there, and I am glad they are there still. I presume they have largely done their work now. I do not know what the next step is. I do know that, so far as any actual work which would mean the production of water for those parched lands is concerned, nothing has been done. In other words, no sod has been turned in that particular irrigation project. I know about the preliminaries, and I know about the surveys. What we want is to get something done. I know that the provincial government, as the hon. member for Moose Jaw has said, and I agree with him-I think they were offered a rather hard deal in the matter-has at least risen to the occasion and has said that they would fulfil their share of the contract, the terms of which they and the federal government apparently have already agreed on. They have risen to the occasion and are prepared to go ahead.
I understand that in the estimates this year there is only the amount of $1 million. A million dollars will not go very far. I remember a speech made by the minister. I have referred to it before, and I have been corrected once or twice by the minister because I have quoted him as saying in my presence, because I listened to him that night in the technical school at Saskatoon, that it was a $110 million project, and apparently the money was going to be provided for the project by the dominion government. That was previous to the election of 1945. I must say in all honesty that the minister corrected me and said that at least some of those millions he had mentioned would be spent on the St. Mary scheme in Alberta; but whatever it is, I should like to see some of it spent on actual work which would produce not reports of engineers and technicians but some water upon the lands of Saskatchewan. There is of course now- I shall not use the word "excuse"-the reason that we are faced with defence expenditures which might preclude this sort of thing; but as I have said, progress must go on. We are not going to get out of these defence expenditures in the next three months, three years or ten years. In the meantime do hon. members not think that one of the best defences

against anything which might happen is to make this country strong internally so that it might have food with which it might supply its own homes and the homes of its allies in other parts of the world?
I shall leave it at that, sir, with the plea that the minister and hon. members will all work to the end that that scheme so long planned, so long projected, so long a reason for hope on the part of the people of the western plains, will finally and soon be fulfilled.


Mr. Ferrie:: Mr. Chairman, I should like on this occasion to say what has been in my mind for a long time. Some years ago at a municipal convention in Saskatoon I delivered a speech concerning the South Saskatchewan river project, and I should like to discuss the subject at greater length on this occasion.
In doing so may I direct the attention of hon. members to some facts. In Canada we have witnessed a concentration of what we have described as defence measures. People have been brought to the point where they think that defence is the only matter of importance. We have listened to speeches from hon. members on both sides of the house who have referred to economies that could be made, and it has been said that for the sake of defence every possible economy must be carried out.
My personal view is that in establishing this standard public thinking has gone a little too far. We realize that it is right and proper to defend our country, and that it is right and proper to have our people believe that they must sacrifice for the good of all. But it must be clearly understood that we cannot economize in agriculture, because to do so would be to economize on the very thing that will make our country strong.
There was an old saying that the army travels on its stomach, and I suggest that, whether it be in the east or in the west, the manufacturing industry is in the same position. The man who produces in eastern Canada travels on his stomach. Those of us in western Canada are not asking to have anything to do with war contracts. It is understood that we have out there a climate entirely satisfactory for flying. We enjoy many hours of daylight and of sunshine, which have enabled the Department of National Defence to establish airfields in western Canada. While I am not entirely satisfied with the location of those airfields, I am satisfied to have them in western Canada. That is our contribution, and that is what Canada is doing to reward us for our loss of war contracts.
The development on the South Saskatchewan river depends on the view taken of that

project by people in eastern Canada. We need money from the east to develop what we have in the west. I could talk for some considerable time about what I believe should be done in the far north. We have fought hard for a development in that area involving the area from Flin Flon up to Sherridon and Lynn Lake. The development in that area is just beginning.
To return to the development of the South Saskatchewan, I would point out that industry in eastern Canada enjoys protection, and that it supplies the west with goods. Between 1920 and 1948 we produced in western Canada over 12 billion bushels of wheat. Just think of that! We have sold that wheat on the markets of the world, and thus have given to the industries in eastern Canada a good standard of living.
Let me add that people in eastern Canada will not be hurt in any way by the development of the South Saskatchewan river. That dam will supply energy and water, and eventually will supply the people of eastern Canada with more money. It will not cost them anything, because it will pay for itself. All we are asking you to do is to develop this project, and to keep in mind what it will mean for the people of western Canada to have a lake about a hundred miles long. It makes very little difference, perhaps, to the people of the east, because they do not suffer from lack of water power. We have plenty of water, but it runs away, and we have no control over it. Our rains come at this time of the year, but the water flows away in torrents, down the Saskatchewan river, out into lake Winnipeg, up through the Nelson and out into Hudson bay. That water is lost.
All we ask is a chance to save it, to control it and to see if we cannot develop something worth while in that dry area. If that is done I am satisfied that we will have the benefits of cheap power, as it is enjoyed in eastern Canada. Out west it must be developed at the present time from coal and steam, and it becomes very costly. In my town it is generated by a diesel engine. I wonder if hon. members have any idea what the cost is. I will tell them that for light and power I pay twenty-seven cents per kilowatt.
We cannot continue on that basis. If it were not for the extra hours the farmers work we could not afford electricity. However, that is not the subject before us at the moment. I am trying to tell the people of eastern Canada we are not asking them to give us anything: we are asking them to put up the money and to begin work on the project, so that in future we can show that it has been worth while.
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And it is worth while. I hope there is no one in the eastern part of Canada who will suggest that it is not worth while and should not be started. We need this development, and we enthusiastically support the control of that body of water. It is vital and necessary to Saskatchewan.


Mr. Harrison:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words at this time. I have listened with considerable interest to what has been said by some of my colleagues and I rise really to support the very sensible observations made by the hon. member for Kindersley. I do not want to enlarge on this at this time, but the South Saskatchewan river development is a very vital project. As far as the riding of Meadow Lake is concerned, the results will be indirect as I am in somewhat the same position as the hon. member for Peace River. I think the hon. member for Peace River should be commended for looking on this as a national project. I think that is about all that requires to be said with regard to the South Saskatchewan development. It will benefit all of the province of Saskatchewan.


Solon Earl Low: All of Canada.


John Hornby Harrison: That is just what I was going to say. Anything that benefits the province of Saskatchewan is going to add to the economy of the whole nation. I was interested in what the hon. member for Lake Centre said with regard to reopening negotiations under the world wheat agreement. I come from a wheat growing area and I am just as much interested in increased returns for the wheat farmer as anyone else. However, I think a matter of this kind should be gone into with some caution because when you reopen an agreement for re-negotiation it can be revised two ways, upward or downward.
Canada is not in a very commanding position as far as the revising of the world wheat agreement is concerned. On the average we have 200 million to 250 million bushels of wheat to dispose of annually on the world market and as such we are not in position to set the price. Some years ago the United States used to sow about 56 million acres to wheat, but in recent years the average has been from 75 million to 79 million acres. Their farmers have found it profitable to continue that production and the result is that annually they have a surplus in the neighbourhood of 500 million bushels of wheat.
The United States is able to sell 80 per cent of its grain on the home market and can thus set a domestic price. That price is set higher than the world price with the result that the 500 million bushels or the 20 per cent surplus is pretty well paid for by their own economy

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and costs them virtually nothing. When you have something that costs you virtually nothing you are able to put it on the market at a very low price if you so desire. With a surplus of that kind they are able to say what the world price should be.
I think they have set the price pretty well at $1.80 and they are the people who will likely set the price if the agreement is re-negotiated. I do not think there is much chance of the price being revised downward, but it is a possibility. We are just a minor stockholder in this company, as it were, because we contribute only a small portion of the wheat. As I say, the United States has 500 million bushels of an exportable surplus, with a domestic economy that consumes 80 per cent of the total production. That creates a situation where they can set a domestic price and pay for the 100 per cent out of the 80 per cent sold domestically. They are then able to dispose of the 20 per cent surplus pretty much as they see fit and at any price they wish.
I do not have anything against what the hon. member for Lake Centre said. If it could be arranged, I think it would be a good thing. But I think we should hold in the back of our minds the realization that we might run into some trouble if we insisted on re-negotiation. If anything along this line is done I think it would be best to first have some private talks with the United States to see what their opinion would be and if they might cause us any trouble we would be better off not to ask for any re-negotiation of this world wheat agreement.


Mr. Wright:: Mr. Chairman, I should like to say a few words with regard to the South Saskatchewan river dam and a few of the other problems facing agriculture today. I was glad to hear the hon. member for Meadow Lake and the hon. member for Mackenzie speak on this matter. Like myself, they represent constituencies which are not directly affected by the irrigation scheme on the South Saskatchewan river. We would benefit indirectly through the power development. My own constituency and that of Mackenzie would also benefit indirectly from the flood control that would result. In those two constituencies, as well as in Churchill constituency, there are large areas in the delta of the Saskatchewan and Carrot rivers which are flooded annually. If this flooding could be controlled, more land could be brought into 'cultivation for less money than we will have to spend on the South Saskatchewan river dam. The indirect benefits to agriculture in the central part of the province will be much greater probably than the benefits to the northeast section.

I had the opportunity last year to visit Idaho, Utah and Washington, returning home through Alberta. I was able to see many irrigation works in those areas and the changes brought about therefrom. The developments that have occurred in those areas as a result of irrigation are really astonishing. I am sure that every member from western Canada is one hundred per cent behind this development. I am sure also that the members from eastern Canada, realizing what it will mean to western Canada and indirectly to their own part of the country, will support this particular project.
We have talked about it for a long time. I know the Minister of Agriculture is behind it one hundred per cent. The difficulty seems to be to convince the treasury board and to get the necessary funds voted for the development. To many of us from western Canada it seems that it is easier to have money voted for projects in the east than it is to get the treasury board to pass similar votes that affect western Canada. That should be overcome. I am sure the eastern members will agree with us from western Canada that this development should be proceeded with at once, rather than two or five years from now. I understand from the report of the engineers that it will take at least seven years to complete this dam. It is to be a packed-earth dam which cannot be built in one or two years. It is a process that has to go on for from five to seven years before it can be completed. If we wait another two or three or four or five years before we start, that simply means it will be that much longer before we get any power. I believe $10 million is all that could be spent this year, and. I do not think that would be missed from our budget. I believe this is something to which the government should give consideration, something the whole house should support, and I would like to hear from some of the eastern members with respect to it. I know they have heard a great deal about our problems in western Canada; I know they have a great many problems of their own here in the east, but I am convinced that this project should be commenced at this time.
I was surprised at some of the statements by the hon. member for Meadow Lake as to the difficulty in arranging any discussion of the world wheat agreement. I believe his reasoning was a bit wrong. Among other things the hon. member said he thought the United States was responsible for setting the ceiling of $1.80. I do not believe the United States was at all responsible for setting that ceiling. That was a negotiated ceiling, and naturally the consuming countries rather

than the producing countries were anxious to keep it as low as possible. It was only after long negotiations that the final price for floors and ceilings was fixed under the agreement. The hon. member suggested that we were rather a small toad in the puddle. As a matter of fact that is not so; we deliver more wheat than any other country under that agreement. Anyone who has studied the agreement understands that 1,000 votes are given the consuming countries and 1,000 are given the producing countries. The number of votes given a country is based upon its deliveries under the agreement, or in the case of the consuming countries upon the amount bought by them. Of the 1,000 votes given the producing countries Canada has 445, so it will be seen that we represent the largest single block of votes among the producers.
I believe this matter should be given serious consideration at this time. As a matter of fact I believe the wheat board should be placed under the Department of Agriculture. It is now many years since wheat was placed under the Department of Trade and Commerce. At that time wheat was probably our most important exportable product; certainly it was a very important item in our export trade. It is still an important item, but it does not have the significance it had at that time. Today our exports of wood products, pulp and paper, minerals and so on have greatly increased, so wheat does not have the same importance in our external trade that it had when it was placed under the Department of Trade and Commerce. Today the wheat board handles not only wheat but coarse grains as well. In those coarse grains they handle the product which eventually determines the production of dairy and meat products in Canada, since that production cannot take place unless you first produce the coarse grains which enter into those commodities. It seems to me that if the Department of Agriculture is to have the control it should have over our agricultural industry so we can have a balanced agricultural program for Canada, the department should have control of the marketing of wheat and coarse grains.
Earlier this session I suggested that the wheat board should be enlarged. Two years ago we passed an amendment to the wheat board act which would permit the appointment of two additional members, making a board of five. When I mentioned the matter earlier this session the Minister of Trade and Commerce stated he was prepared to appoint additional members if he could find suitable men who would work harmoniously with those already on the board and who had the 80709-228
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ability to do the job that would be expected of them. The minister asked if I could suggest any men who would be suitable for these positions. Well, it is not my place to make such suggestions, but since that time I have consulted several farm organizations who have told me they know of men who would be suitable for appointment, so I think the number of members of the board should be increased. In appointing new members I believe two points should be taken into consideration. In the three present members of the board we have men who thoroughly understand the selling of our grain. That has been their business; they have been at it for twenty-five or thirty years; they have come up through the various grain organizations, and they understand that part of the board's work. But in the handling and selling of coarse grains it seems to me we should have on the board someone who has a broader view of the whole agricultural industry of this country. I would suggest that in making these two additional appointments one man at least should be a livestock producer from western Canada or a man from one of our western universities who understands the wider aspects of agriculture rather than just the selling of our grains. In the other appointment I think we would be well advised to consider someone from the east who understands the livestock situation and knows something about the distribution of feed grains in this part of the country. Then we as producers and sellers of grain in western Canada would have on the board a representative of those who consume the greater portion of our products, who would be able to give advice on the best methods of keeping our eastern markets. It seems to me that in this way we would have a more effective board and would be better able to handle our coarse grains.
Earlier this session I made a suggestion in reference to the handling of coarse grains, which at present are sold on the Winnipeg grain exchange to the extent of about 75 per cent of the total. I have the figures in a return of February 9, giving the number of bushels sold in that way. I have placed them on record before, so I need not repeat them today, but they show that 75 per cent of our coarse grains are sold through the grain exchange at the present time, with the other 25 per cent being sold by the board direct to the consumer. I am convinced that if we are to maintain our market for coarse grains in eastern Canada we must find some more direct method than selling through the Winnipeg grain exchange. I believe we should move our coarse grains to the east while they are still under the control of the wheat board, using government facilities in eastern Canada

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for the storage of the grain and establishing direct sales agencies which would deal with the eastern consumers. It seems to me that is the only way we are going to be able to maintain and develop our market for coarse grains in eastern Canada, and for that reason I am convinced that we should have a representative from eastern Canada on the wheat board, together with another agricultural man who would understand -the relationship between the price of coarse grains and the price of livestock. In that way we could maintain a better balance and could get back into the production of livestock in both west and east.
If you are to build up a livestock industry, there must be a reasonable relationship between the price of coarse grains and the price of livestock. It seems to me that we need more co-operation between the east and the west, between the livestock producer and the grain man in Canada today, if we are to get back to a reasonably balanced type of agriculture. I am convinced that it could be done through our wheat board if we enlarged the number on that board to include representatives from other sections of agriculture than the producers and sellers of grain. I hope the minister will give some consideration to this matter of placing the wheat board under the control of the Department of Agriculture rather than the Department of Trade and Commerce.
For a great many years we did not have agricultural legislation in this country which permitted the producers to set up the necessary marketing boards to market their products. Under the British North America Act agriculture is in a dual position. It is partly under the control of the province, and partly under the control of the dominion. As a result of this there was a great deal of what army people term "passing the buck" so far as agricultural legislation was concerned. In the last fifteen years we have gotten away from that a bit, so that today we have on the statute books four major acts dealing with agriculture. First, there is the wheat board act, passed in 1935 by the Bennett government and since amended many times. It is doing a reasonably good job in the marketing of wheat. As I said, there are still some improvements that could be made to it.
The second major piece of legislation which we have concerning the marketing of agricultural products is the Agricultural Products Co-operative Marketing Act of 1939, and the Wheat Co-operative Marketing Act of 1939. Then we have the Agricultural Prices Support Act of 1944, and the Agricultural Products Marketing Act of 1949. Those are the four major acts dealing with agriculture which we now have. You will notice one

thing that is common to them all, and' that is that they were all passed in a year before an election. When they were passed many fine promises were made as to what their effect upon agriculture would be. Some of them have had the desired effect, and some have not.
The Agricultural Products Co-operative Marketing Act passed in 1939 was an act for the marketing of agricultural products through co-operative organizations. Under that act the dominion government will guarantee an initial payment up to eighty per cent of the average price for the three years previous on a product which is being marketed by a co-operative organization. There have been quite a number of co-operative organizations selling agricultural products under that act. Since the act was put into force there has only been one occasion that I know of when the dominion government became liable for a payment under that guarantee. I believe in 1947 a guarantee was made to the silver fox producers in Canada, and there was a deficit under that operation. It seems that not only the co-operatives handling fox pelts were guaranteed, but a lot of other organizations were apparently able to come under the act. Even the Hudson's Bay Company was able to qualify for a payment of several thousand dollars on fox pelts marketed by the -company. I believe the original intention was that the act should deal only with co-operatives, but it was certainly extended on that occasion. The act is a good one. It permits orderly marketing by co-operative organizations by reason of the dominion government guaranteeing their bank loans for the initial payment up to eighty per cent of the average price over the past three years.
As a matter of fact, floor prices could be placed under agricultural products through the operation of this act. The act has never been used for that purpose. In no case of which I am aware-perhaps the Minister of Agriculture can correct me-has an initial payment been guaranteed up to eighty per cent of the average price for the last three years. As I say, there may be cases in which that has been done. I do not know whether the co-operatives have ever asked for a guarantee as high as that.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is a matter of negotiation, and, as has been said, I do not believe there has been any case where the guarantee has been as high as eighty per cent. The act provides for eighty per cent, but it is usually around sixty per cent.


Percy Ellis Wright: That was my understanding, that it was usually around sixty per cent.

The act could be used, however, if there was a disastrous drop in the price of any particular agricultural product which was being marketed by a co-operative, such as the alfalfa produced in northern Saskatchewan. I believe those producers are using this act since their incorporation.
The third act which was passed was the Agricultural Prices Support Act of 1944. When that act was passed it was to support agricultural prices during the transition from war to peace. As hon. members will recall, the act was renewed from year to year until last year it was made permanent legislation. Again this is a good act, but it has its limitations. When the minister introduced the act, he gave us to understand that it would be used to support agricultural prices at a level which would equal the cost of production in this country, plus a reasonable return for any sacrifices which the farmers had made during the first two or three years of war, during which time everyone recognized that agricultural prices were below the cost of production. Unfortunately that formula, if it was a formula, has not been used, and year after year agricultural organizations from eastern and western Canada have been asking the government to have some formula in the act which would indicate the floor to which the price for any agricultural product may fall. I believe the government should give consideration to placing some formula in the act.
Today we are operating alongside the United States, and this government has indicated that it believes our prices must be allowed to find their level somewhere near the level of prices in the United States. But we find that the farmers in the United States have floor prices under a great many of their products, in particular their major products. In the matter of wheat, for instance, the United States floor price is in the neighbourhood of $2 per bushel, and the price has been consistently above that. The Canadian floor price as announced by the minister, or the initial payment-I am not going to argue with the minister over terms- is today $1.40 for our coming crop. Now, that is a difference of 60 cents per bushel. Yet I believe our production costs in Canada are as high as the production costs in the United States, with the exception of the cost of land. So far as farm machinery and other production costs are concerned our costs are as high, and yet we find our floor price is 60 cents below the floor price in the United States.
It is the same with many other agricultural products. If we are to have legislation which is to be effective, which is to mean 80709-228J
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anything to our industry in this country, I think we should have a formula under our Agricultural Prices Support Act so that agriculture in this country would feel secure in going ahead and expanding production. To my mind that is the main reason why we are not getting the expanded production that we might expect in meat products at this time when prices are high. I believe that the main factor is the fact that the average farmer does not feel secure in starting in to* build up a herd, at present prices. Unless he has some guarantee in the form of some formula in our price support legislation,, which will justify him in going ahead and expanding his production, I am afraid we shall continue to produce at the level at. which we are now producing, and probably at an even lower level than we have at the present time. Under present conditions large shipments of our breeding stock are going to the United States. That situation will continue, and we shall find our herds decreasing in this country unless there is some security, some guarantee to the producer that if he goes into production he can expect these prices to be reasonable over a period of years.
The other piece of legislation which we have on our statute books is the Agricultural Products Marketing Act which we passed in
1949.	Here again we have a good piece of legislation if it has authority and if it will do the things which the Minister of Agriculture indicated to the house might be accomplished under it when the act was passed.
Hon. members will recall that back in 1934 we had an agricultural products marketing: act passed by the Bennett government at that time but which was found to be ultra vires and was discarded. This time we have started from a different angle; and the minister indicated to the house that, having obtained the view of the law officers of the crown, he believed our present act would do for us the job that it is supposed to do. There is, however, still a great deal of doubt with regard to the legality of the act if it is, extended to set up central selling agencies wherein two or more provinces will get together to market their products in inters provincial and export trade. I do not suppose that we shall know definitely whether that act is legal or not until an actual case* has been tried. But we have never had from; the government any assurance that I know of to the effect that if such action is taken to prove the act to be ultra vires, if and when it is operated by two or more provinces, the government will see that the act is amended or that the necessary amendments are made

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to our- constitution in order to make the act do the job that it was intended to do; and until the government will come forward and give some definite assurance that it is their intention to stand behind this act and that, if it is not legal in its present form-if central selling agencies are set up by various provinces in order to market their products in interprovincial and export trade, and if a test case is taken and it is found that the act is not legal-that it will stand behind the organizations and see that the necessary amendments are made to the act or that the necessary amendments are made to our constitution to see that the act is operative.
These are a few of the things that are facing our agricultural producers today. Various members who have spoken have indicated that the agricultural income during the last year has fallen in Canada by something over $200 million. In the province of Saskatchewan alone-owing, as other hon. members have stated, partly to weather conditions and partly to the fact that our crop was not all marketed last year-the drop in income this year has been approximately [DOT] $160 million. On the other side of the picture the increase in our cost of production has been approximately $50 million in that province; it is more than that across the dominion. Those are serious problems for the man who is doing the work and producing the food. I feel that some consideration should be given to them and that certain amendments to this legislation which I have indicated should be brought before this house either at this session of parliament or at the next one.


Mr. Hatfield:: Mr. Chairman, I agree one hundred per cent with the hon. member who has just taken his seat. Some of the members from the west say that they cannot sell the South Saskatchewan river project to the eastern members and to treasury board. I have been in this house for eleven years and I have never heard a member from eastern Canada oppose any irrigation project for western Canada. I think that any worthwhile legislation will be supported by members from eastern Canada.
I should like to get out of the west for a few minutes and get down to a section that is farther east than the one which hon. members have been talking about, namely the maritime provinces.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Potatoes.


Heber Harold Hatfield: I consider that we have not received fair treatment in the maritime provinces. I know that we have not received fair treatment in regard to the production of potatoes in the two provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. We have a

plan down there. We have had one for the last two months. It is working out and giving good results. But the farmers down there who are now planting the crop, or have practically finished doing so, do not know what is going to come out of that plan. They know that some arrangement was made by the New Brunswick and the Prince Edward Island marketing boards with the Department of Agriculture in the two provinces and the department at Ottawa whereby an arrangement was made under the co-operative marketing act of 1939. I understand that a producer's initial payment of $1.20 per barrel or 44 cents a bushel was set up. But I have never been able to find out whether or not that is correct. What I should like to know is this with regard to the potato growers of those two provinces who sold their potatoes last fall at the ridiculously low price of 60 cents a barrel, the farmers that were forced to sell. They were mainly veterans who returned from the war and took up farms under the Veterans Land Act and who could not hold their potatoes until spring, or until the last two months. I should like to know whether they are going to receive an initial payment of $1.20 a barrel. That is what I should like the minister to tell the house when he makes his statement.
I should like to see fair treatment clear across Canada for the primary producers of Canada. I will favour that as long as I am in the house. I should like to see fair treatment for all farmers. The United States have given great support prices for agriculture. I think they went too far in the United States. However, when in 1949 they paid out sums such as $822 million for cotton, $767 million for corn, $750 million for wheat, $241 million for flaxseed and linseed and $170 million for peanuts, I think they went too far in the United States. We received no such treatment in Canada. When the prices support act was introduced in 1944 we expected to get fair treatment. I do not think that act has been enforced as the minister explained to us it would be when he introduced it in parliament. I am sure we have not had fair support under it.
I understand that the minister hopes to have the crop of potatoes in the two maritime provinces which is now being planted under the co-operative marketing act. I understand that a plan is to be worked out with the marketing boards of the two provinces to deal with the crop now being planted. A few weeks ago the minister told me that he hoped to have this done. I understand that under the present act the initial payment has to be set in the spring of the year when the crop is planted. It is similar to the way wheat is dealt with. The initial price for

wheat grown in western Canada was announced in this house a few weeks ago. I have heard nothing about potatoes since the starch program was set up some time ago. I believe that some potatoes were shipped apart from the starch program, I suppose under the co-operative marketing act. When the minister speaks I want him to tell the house just where we in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island stand in regard to the 1950 and 1951 crop of potatoes.


Mr. Sinnott:: What about the rest of Canada?


Heber Harold Hatfield: You look after yourselves. All that I have heard in the eleven years that I have been here is about western Canada, and that is all I have heard since this item came up. If you cannot talk of wheat you talk of water:	You must have
more than water out there. What we want is fair treatment.


John Sylvester Aloysius Sinnott: That is all we are looking for.


Heber Harold Hatfield: We are willing to support the west in getting fair treatment. Fair treatment should be given to every primary producer, because if you force the farmers off the farms-and they have been going off the farms by hundreds weekly down in the maritime provinces and coming to Ontario and Quebec-I do not know what you are going to do for food, because food does not come out of the kitchen. It is not manufactured in the kitchen. I takes a lot of work to produce food. If you are going to bring all the farmers off the farms and into the factories of the two central provinces, I do not know where you are going to get your food.
The plan which has been in effect in the last two months has been a wonderful help to the two maritime provinces. The price of $1.20 a barrel in New Brunswick and 44 cents a bushel in Prince Edward Island does not give them the cost of production. However, it is better than the price of 60 cents a barrel and 20 cents a bushel, and they are thankful for it. But I should like to see some help given to the farmers who were forced to sell their potatoes for practically nothing last fall. They should have the same price as the grower who is able to hold his potatoes until spring. These people were not able to hold their potatoes. They had not the storage; they had not the finances to hold their potatoes until spring. Therefore they had to sell them for very much less than the cost of production. I hope the minister will make a statement on this matter and tell us where we stand in these two provinces.


Mr. Fair:: I want to thank the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton who has just taken his
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seat for the co-operation he has offered on behalf of the eastern members when we come here seeking a square deal for our own farmers all across Canada.
I feel that the farming industry has been neglected far too much in the past. The importance of this industry is not recognized by those in office. Until that is done we will not have a prosperous Canada, which it is possible to have if proper policies are pursued.
I am sorry to see at this time that the estimates of the Department of Agriculture have been slashed by something like 35 per cent. In my opinion that is not good business at this time. We have been told that we must devote all our energies to defence, but I think we should also point out that the people of this country, and the people in other countries with whom we are allied, must have food, and lots of it. And that has been proven-


Alphonse Fournier: Mr. Chairman, with the hon. member's permission may I say this? We will have to go to the other place in a few minutes and we must have Mr. Speaker in the chair. Would the hon. member mind if I moved that we report progress and ask leave to sit again this day?'
Item stands.
Progress reported.



CONSUMER CREDIT


Alphonse Fournier: the second reading of and concurrence in an amendment made by the Senate to Bill No. 195, to amend the Consumer Credit (Temporary Provisions) Act.


Stanley Howard Knowles: By leave. What is the amendment?


Mr. James Sinclair (Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Finance):: The third section of the bill provided that where it was suspected that there had been an infraction of the regulations an official of the department could take the books in question and hold them up to ninety days. Members of the Senate felt that, although this is the same provision as is found in the Income Tax Act and the Foreign Exchange Control Act, the period was too long, so far as merchants were concerned, and they cut it back to thirty days. Our department feels that if we take photostats of the documents it will be possible to observe that thirty-day rule. Therefore we have accepted the amendment.

The Royal Assent


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, amendment read the second time and concurred in.

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major C. R. Lamoureux, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, the Honourable the Deputy Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, Mr. Speaker with the house went up to the Senate chamber.
And being returned:
Mr. Speaker informed the house that the Deputy Governor General had been pleased [DOT]to give, in His Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:
An act for the relief of Eileen McDermott McRandall.
An act for the relief of Laurice Mary Michel Shatilla.
An act for the relief of Mihaly Kovacs.
An act for the relief of Rebecca Glicofsky Brown.
An act for the relief of Selma Rokowsky Kirzner.
An act for the relief of Ferdinand Langlois.
An act for the relief of Violet Edith Macdonald Harris.
An act for the relief of Francoise Brunet Crassow-ski.
An act for the relief of Emily Rita Rowlands Simpson.
An act for the relief of Ivy Lucas Levitt.
An act for the relief of Marguerite Marie Rita Fournier Cook.
An act for the relief of Paul Emile Piuze.
An act for the relief of Antonio Romeo.
An act for the relief of James Edward Thomas.
An act for the relief of Mary Louise Webster Hunt.
An act for the relief of Marie Blanche Amilda Lessard Duplessis.
An act for the relief of Anne Fineman Segal.
An act for the relief of Ida Weinstein Yaphe.
An act for the relief of Shirley Titleman Rodin.
An act for the relief of Yvette Ernestine Gagnon Lyons.
An act for the relief of Rose Pakidailo Greenberg.
An act for the relief of Marie Jeanne Dragon Bigaouette.
An act for the relief of Olive Marguerite Cann Nichol.
An act for the relief of Abraham Tarontchick, otherwise known as Abraham Turner.
An act for the relief of Mabel Caroline Lay Red-burn McCormick.
An act for the relief of Jack Harold Frederick Grater.
An act for the relief of Kathleen Merle McCullough McCallum.
An act for the relief of Mary Margaret Urquhart Cuthbert Gilman.
An act for the relief of Margaret Isabel Ward Green.
An act	for	the	relief	of	Rejeanne Laliberte
Tinker.
An act for the relief of Frederick John Pratt.
An act for the relief of Arthur Frederick Albin Turner.
An act for the relief of Maria Silvaggio Mazzalongo.
An act	for	the	relief	of	Jacqueline Yvonne
Suzanne Stucker Grant.
An act for the relief of Ethelbert Deniston Joseph Bartholomew.

An act for the relief of Ivy Elizabeth Whitehead Simpson.
An act for the relief of Evelyn Elizabeth Hulbig Wilks.
An act for the relief of Margaret Cameron Williams.
An act for the relief of Rose Pap Bernstein.
An act for the relief of Albert William Stone.
An act for the relief of Yvette Barnaby Shang.
An act for the relief of Minnie Engle Fitleberg.
An act for the relief of Carol Elizabeth Chute Levesque.
An act for the relief of Lillian Cohen Turner.
An act for the relief of Georgina Catherine Christie Savage.
An act for the relief of Irene Bourgeau Morin.
An act for the relief of Anne Cohen Bialer.
An act for the relief of Josephine Gibson Clark Mayou.
An act for the relief of Henry John Lawrence.
An act for the relief of Grace Shirley Kraminsky Levy.
An act for the relief of Bella Rashkin Deutsch.
An act for the relief of Gladys Eliza Cartwright Jones.
An act for the relief of Grace Helen Potts Worall.
An act for the relief of Hortense Marie Therese Loiese Neveu.
An act for the relief of Eileen Florence Alma Hinton Johnson.
An act for the relief of Ritchie Leslie McEwen.
An act for the relief of Catherine Marie Littlefield Stirling.
An act for the relief of Marie Rose Vachon Orr.
An act for the relief of Viola Rupert Moran.
An act of rthe relief of Philip Rosen.
An act for the relief of Leah Berniker Berger.
An act for the relief of Betty Suffrin Sher.
An act for the relief of Muriel Violet Marcella Barkas Sauve.
An act for the relief of Lois Christine Flemming Foster.
An act for the relief of Joseph Napoleon Romeo Moisan.
An act for the relief of Catherine Veronica Joynt Bragdon.
An act for the relief of Sarah Alice Thompson Getzler.
An act for the relief of Grace Anderson Hallam.
An act for the relief of Edna May Walker Green.
An act for the relief of Donald George Story.
An act to incorporate the Hutterian Brethren Church.
An act to amend the Migratory Birds Convention Act.
An act to amend the Radio Act, 1938.
An act to amend the Export and Import Permits Act.
An act respecting the construction and maintenance of a bridge over the St. Lawrence river at or near the town of Valleyfield, in the province of Quebec.
An act to amend the Canadian Citizenship Act.
An act respecting the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League.
An act to incorporate the Mercantile and General Reinsurance Company of Canada Limited.
An act to incorporate Canadian-Montana Pipe Line Company.
An act respecting the appointment of auditors for national railways.
An act respecting a certain patent application of George R. Hanks.
An act to incorporate the Ukrainian Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Western Canada.
An act respecting the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Canada.
An act to amend the Northwest Territories Act.
An act to amend the Yukon Act.

An act respecting the Hamilton harbour commissioners.
An act respecting Laurier house.
An act respecting Kingsmere park.
An act to amend the Government Employees Compensation Act, 1947.
An act to incorporate the Ukrainian Catholic Episcopal Corporation of Eastern Canada.
An act to amend the Canadian Commercial Corporation Act.
An act to amend the Canadian and British Insurance Companies Act, 1932.
An act to amend the Consumer Credit (Temporary Provisions) Act.
An act for granting to His Majesty certain sums of money for the public service of the financial year ending the 31st March, 1952.
At six o'clock the house took recess.

AFTER RECESS

The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Louis Stephen St-Laurent: Mr. Speaker, may I ask you, by
leave of the house, to revert to motions so that I may make a brief announcement that is to appear in the London papers tomorrow morning.


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Si. Laurent:: The government of the
United Kingdom has today issued the following announcement, but with the restriction that it is not to appear in the newspapers until tomorrow morning. Those newspapers will be published within a few hours after the time I make the announcement here. The announcement is as follows:
It has been agreed to hold a conference of defence ministers from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia. The ministers have decided that London will be a convenient meeting place and the conference will open there on June 21. It will consider certain defence problems arising in regions of common concern to these countries including the Middle East and also consequential questions of equipment and training which are of mutual interest to them. Canada will be represented at the conference by an observer.
That is the end of the announcement to be made in London. The desirability of holding such a conference was discussed on the occasion of the meeting of commonwealth prime ministers in London last January. It was then the feeling of the governments of the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia that it would be helpful to hold a conference of the defence ministers of those countries to
Defence Conference
consider problems arising in regions of special concern to them, including the Middle East.
Canada has, of course, special and direct defence responsibilities in the north Atlantic region. Our interests in the regional defence problems which will be under discussion at the forthcoming conference are less direct than those of the other commonwealth countries which will be represented there. The government has accordingly decided that it would be appropriate to be represented at the conference by a civilian and a military observer. Our position in this respect is fully appreciated by other commonwealth governments concerned.

The house resumed in committee of supply, Mr. Beaudoin in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
1. Departmental administration, $336,942.
Robert Fair: Mr. Chairman, when the committee rose before six o'clock I was pointing out the importance of agriculture to all Canadians, and was thanking the hon. member for Victoria-Carleton	for his
co-operation in seeing that agriculture got a square deal. I pointed out also that some members are giving practically all their support to the defence program, but without food the defence program would not be very far-reaching. For that reason I feel that agriculture is of great importance to this country. I was about to quote the figures in the estimates for agriculture for the fiscal year 1950-51 and for the present fiscal year. The agricultural estimates were $81,805,497 for the fiscal year 1950-51, whereas for the present fiscal year they amount to $53,131,838. There is a decrease of $28,673,659, or approximately thirty-five per cent. I am not feeling happy about this decrease in a department as important as agriculture.
During the afternoon we heard speakers from the various parties deal with the question of irrigation. Many good recommendations were made, to which I want to add my support. I do not feel it is necessary to reply to the different arguments, but even though the irrigation projects are not in my constituency I feel that they are of interest to Canada as a whole. Realizing that we cannot deal with our own particular district, I feel we should give all support to these programs because they are of benefit to the country as a whole. The Prairie Farm Assistance Act was mentioned by the hon. member for Peace River. On another occasion, I believe May 1, he gave

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Agriculture
same particulars as to the effect of this act on farmers in his part of the country. The minister could see some flaws in this legislation, and brought in amendments to remove certain injustices. While I was a member of the agricultural committee which dealt with those amendments, I did not foresee the difficulties which exist in the Peace River district now. I do not believe the Minister of Agriculture foresaw them either, because whenever flaws in the legislation were pointed out to him he did not waste time in having them remedied. The particular reason for bringing in the amendments at that time was to prevent settling on marginal land. I feel that there is a new problem in the Peace River country, but I have no doubt that the minister will give further consideration to it before this session is completed, and bring in the necessary amendments to rectify the injustices which exist in that section of the country. This act is man-made, and I do not see any reason why we cannot pass some amendments to make it more effective in the interests of agriculture in all parts of the country.
The question of the international wheat agreement has also been dealt with. We find quite a lot of dissatisfaction throughout the country, particularly in the western provinces, because the Ontario wheat growers did not come under the international wheat agreement. There have been quite a few complaints around my part of the country about that, but I am not going to discuss it because the Ontario farmers grow a different grade of wheat which is useful for different purposes. So far as the international wheat agreement affects us, I feel that there are injustices in that agreement that should be rectified. It is not my intention to go into it in detail, but I feel that, if the recommendation of the hon. member for Acadia had been implemented at the time this agreement was first discussed in the house, we would not have had the present injustices. I expect many people are not aware that class II wheat is now being sold by the wheat board for nearly 40 cents per bushel more than the wheat that is being delivered under the international wheat agreement. I feel that that loss, in addition to the many million dollars that have been lost under another agreement just concluded, is a little too much for the prairie wheat growers to take without complaint.
The suggestion made by the member for Acadia was to the effect that the price of wheat should be tied to the price of other commodities in the countries where our wheat was sold. When the prices of other commodities went up or down, then the price of wheat would follow. This provision would 
give everyone a square deal, and that is all we are requesting for our farmers both east and west. As the agreement stands now, provision is made for a decrease of ten cents per bushel per year without any consideration whatever being given to the rapidly rising cost of production. But as matters stand at the present time, it looks as though the costs are going to increase while the price of our product will decrease as time goes on. As I have stated already, we are losing close to 40 cents a bushel on every bushel sold under the international wheat agreement at the present time, as compared with the price of class II wheat. That is too much for the farmers to be asked to lose. No compensation whatever, of course, is provided for. In spite of the champions of the grain exchange inside and outside the house, I am still firmly convinced that the wheat board system of marketing our grain is the one and only system that will give the farmers anything like a square deal. We had experience with the grain exchange many years ago; and if it is a good system for the sale of our wheat and other grains, why do not manufacturers and other producers take advantage of that system? Perhaps you would have the price of cars, lumber and household goods away down in line with agricultural prices today. If that were the case, I do not think you would have much complaint coming from the farmers of this country.
We find that some people who should know better-including some of the great self styled champions of the west who came here on the strength of the farmers' vote-even at the present time are going out and preaching against the wheat board, against international agreements and in favour of the Winnipeg grain exchange which has been rightfully described as one of the legalized gambling dens of the country. I am just as firm in my opinion today as: I have ever been that the gambling den should be put out of existence.
Earlier this session I suggested that the marketing of our grain should be taken out of the Department of Trade and Commerce and placed under the Department of Agriculture. I admit immediately that the Minister of Trade and Commerce is an extremely efficient man in his own line. But when you put him in a wheat field or a potato patch. I think he is entirely out of place. Perhaps the settlement of that agreement just about a year ago now is some of the best evidence we can get to back up the statement I have just made. The Minister of Agriculture has farmed, has. worked among farmers and knows his department and the intricacies of production and marketing as well as, or perhaps better than, most other hon. members

of the House of Commons. I think that the growers of grain and other products should have the advantage of the experience of the Minister of Agriculture.
We are devoting a great deal of our time and outr money to producing more and better food. But if government policy and government administration is going to give that food away without proper compensation to the farmer, why should the farmer continue to boost his production and improve the grade of the things he is producing? Even at the present time, while many hon. members are still commenting on the alleged raid made on the treasury by the farmers of the prairie provinces, we must realize that the consumers all over Canada-including the members of the House of Commons-are eating bread that is subsidized by the wheat growers of the prairie provinces to the extent of almost 40 cents a bushel. While many of them are well fed on that subsidized bread, we still have them coming here and1 complaining about the alleged raid made on the federal treasury by the farmers. But even after that crumb that fell from the rich man's table was paid to the farmer, let it not be forgotten that over a four-year period:, from 1945 to 1949, the wheat growers are still in the red to the extent of approximately $450 million on that deal, taking in the British wheat agreement and the subsidizing of the Canadian consumers. I therefore feel that a little bit more consideration should be given to our agricultural population.
In case there should be anyone who thinks we are being properly treated, I should like to ask this question and to receive an answer: Is there any other occupational group in this country which is treated in the same way. We do not have any cost plus system in figuring out the price of our farm produce; and when we come to examine the financial statement of many of our farmers, we do not have the large amounts that have been cited here in this chamber recently in connection with corporation profits.
We have been criticized here for rising and advocating a better deal for agriculture. In my opinion-and I believe the same opinion was expressed by the Minister of Agriculture some few years ago-we do not have nearly enough representatives of agriculture standing up for the rights of the farmer in the House of Commons. On this occasion when agriculture is being discussed, I should like to see members from the Atlantic to the Pacific stand up for the rights of the farmer; because when you have a prosperous agriculture, then you have guaranteed employment for labour, organized and unorganized, and for all other industries within the country. I feel that the time is long past 80709-229
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when agriculture should have been brought up to the same level as other industries within the country. I believe the Prime Minister realizes the need for that step also because, speaking in southern Ontario only a couple of months ago, he raised that question; and it has been cited in the house here on one other occasion. I am not going to deal with it further tonight.
When it comes to fighting wars, where do you go to get your help for the factories? Where do you go to get your best fighting men in all services? You go to the farms of Canada. As proof that conditions on the farm are not what they should be, we find statistics showing that over 80,000 farm workers left the farm and moved to the city during the past calendar year. If that is not sufficient proof, then I think people ought to get around and see conditions as they are, not sit around here and listen to some of the old stories that have been told for years in connection with farmers and their business.
Since coming to the House of Commons I have been pleading, as my colleagues have been, for parity prices for agriculture. If we have that situation, I believe we shall have a much more prosperous, contented and united Canada than we have at the present time.


Mr. Argue:: Before this item passes, Mr. Chairman, I should like to take this opportunity to comment briefly on some remarks that have been made during this afternoon and evening with respect to the general condition of agriculture at this time. I believe that the farmers throughout Canada are looking to the government for action to enable them to lead a secure life, under conditions that will allow a reasonable standard of living. As has already been said a number of times today, the farmers are not asking for handouts. They are not asking for the highest prices the traffic will bear. What they ask for is some reasonable stability in their prices and in their costs of production.
So far as we in western Canada are concerned, in order to have a more stabilized agriculture one of our primary needs is to have a proper scheme of crop insurance. For that reason-we in the C.C.F. have always supported the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, and we have always fought for its extension and its improvement at every opportunity. I must say that since this act was first passed in 1939 certain improvements have been made; but last year an amendment was brought down in this house which meant that farmers who once had received prairie farm assistance, and who once were eligible for it, were deprived of its benefits. I hope the time is not far distant, although I might

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add there is no indication that it will be soon, when this government will take steps to increase the benefits payable under that act. The maximum benefits are $2.50 an acre on half of the cultivated acreage, and these benefits first applied under the original act over ten years ago. In spite of the fact that the costs of production have doubled or trebled since that time, there has been no upward revision of the benefits under the act. However, at times amendments have been brought in which have reduced the area in which the benefits might be paid until a far greater percentage of the farmers who do have a crop failure are eligible for the bonus.
I was interested in the remarks of the hon. member for Peace River this afternoon. I agree with him that the amendments last year which have deprived certain farmers of the benefits of that act without any rhyme were a backward step and are working a hardship on a great many farms, particularly in Alberta. Although a great many of the farmers, because of that amendment, are not allowed to receive the benefits of the prairie farm assistance, nevertheless they are forced to pay into the fund one per cent, year in and year out.
When any person or any group of persons is obliged by law to pay premiums into a certain fund, they should not be deprived of benefits. I should like to point out to the hon. member for Peace River that last year in the agriculture committee I moved a motion asking that that backward step, which would deprive thousands of farmers of the bonus, be not taken. Even though I moved that motion I did not have the pleasure of the support, on the vote of the members in that committee, of the Social Credit party. I believe that the leader of the Social Credit group now believes that these amendments were unjust, and I am sure that the members of the agriculture committee from his group will agree with him, although, as I say, last year, when I attempted to take out of those amendments the retroactive feature, I was not fortunate enough to receive support from the members of the Social Credit group on the committee.
As I have said, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act has been of considerable benefit, but certain definite amendments should be made to that act, and should be made immediately. The maximum benefit of $500 now will buy only half or one-third the amount of goods that it would buy in 1939. The farmer who has two or three crop failures in a row, and is dependent upon- the $200, $300, $400 or $500 he receives from the Prairie Farm

Assistance Act, is certainly not going to be able to continue in the business of farming and maintain his family in decency. The amendments moved last year were absolutely unfair and uncalled for. They provided that, with certain exemptions, lands disposed of by His Majesty after the 31st day of December, 1940, would be no longer eligible for the bonus. As I said ini the committee at that time and in the house during the last session, I would have no objection at any time if the government would bring in amendments so that submarginal land properly defined would no longer be eligible for benefits provided that of course some other steps were taken to take care of the people who might be involved. But certainly arbitrary amendments to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, such as we had last year, depriving people of benefits that they had enjoyed for over ten years, while forcing them to pay a premium into that fund year in and year out, are grossly unfair and should be corrected at an early date.
I agree with those who this afternoon pressed upon the government the need for doing something to revise the present ceiling prices in the international wheat agreement. I might say that I believe I was the first member who raised the question in the house, when on May 16 I asked the Minister of Trade and Commerce whether he would not consider getting in touch with the other nations signing the agreement to see if an upward revision of prices might not be negotiated. At that time the Minister of Trade and Commerce threw up his hands and suggested that he was not going to scuttle the agreement, inferring that 1 was suggesting that such a thing should be done. Mr. Chairman, there was no such suggestion from me or from anyone else that Canada should in any way abrogate the present international wheat agreement.
The only suggestion that we made was that in view of the terrific increase in the cost of production, our government, on behalf of the farmers, should suggest to the other signatories to that agreement that some upward revision in the ceiling price should be made.
It has been suggested in this house that Canada is a pretty unimportant member of the international wheat agreement, but I would point out that of the 1,000 votes held by exporting countries under that agreement Canada -holds 445. We certainly are an important country in that agreement, second in the exporting field only to the United States. Our quota is some 221 million bushels; the United States quota is 248 million bushels.

As has already been said, the United States government is subsidizing every bushel of United States wheat that is sold under the international wheat agreement. The United Grain Growers estimate that the subsidy the United States is paying will cost approximately $100 million. I am sure their government would be happy to take any practicable steps which might result in an upward revision of the ceilings, and consequently a reduction of the subsidy that the United States government is now paying. I want to point out, too-I do not think this can be pointed out too strongly-that the United States government subsidy on wheat being sold under the international wheat agreement has resulted in a satisfactory price for wheat to the United States farmer. The American public is paying as much for its wheat as any other country in the world, including even those countries outside the international wheat agreement. But the situation in Canada is entirely different.
Not only will this government not guarantee the farmers of Canada a parity price, but they are disposing of Canadian farmers' wheat to Canadian consumers at 38 cents a bushel less than class II wheat.
I suggest the government should establish a parity price for wheat, and parity prices for other farm commodities. They should be prices bearing a fair relationship to farmers' production costs. The farmer is not asking for a handout; but when the government sets the floor price for the coming crop at a figure as low as $1.40 a bushel, and forces the Canadian farmer to subsidize the Canadian consumer to the extent of 38 cents a bushel, then in my opinion the government is not playing fair with the farmers of Canada.
True, we have certain floor-price measures, but they are almost depression floor prices- 28 cents a pound on cheese, 58 cents on butter, $32.50 per hundredweight on hogs, 38 cents a dozen on eggs. In my opinion all those floors are far below the cost of production. When the producers of Canada see that floor prices are so low, naturally they reduce production. And when they reduce production, then of course there is a shortage of those commodities, with the result that prices to the consumers become high.
Our farmers are prepared to produce in abundance all these various agricultural commodities; but they ask that the government will guarantee to them reasonable floor prices based upon parity, which shall have some relation to their cost of production.
Before concluding I would refer briefly to the South Saskatchewan river dam. I noticed 80709-229J
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this afternoon that almost every member who spoke, and certainly every member who referred to the subject, agreed that the building of the dam would be a good thing not only for Saskatchewan but for Canada. I do not think I need to dwell upon the benefits which would result from the building of such a project. I believe those benefits are well known.
I feel however that some members are using an argument which is somewhat fallacious when they say that the construction of the dam and the provision of irrigation on some 750,000 acres of land would result in an increase in the farm population of Saskatchewan. I believe any economist in Canada who is conversant with the agricultural situation in all our provinces will see that one of the problems is that a substantial percentage of farmers are trying to make a living on uneconomic units. In other words, their farms are too small for proper efficiency. We know that situation has prevailed and continues to prevail in southwestern Saskatchewan. That is one of the reasons there has been a movement of farm population from that area to areas of higher production.
But the fact that so many farmers are today farming on uneconomic units is the very best reason I could advance for the government's going ahead with the South Saskatchewan river project. Irrigation out there does not mean just irrigation farming; it means the production of feed and fodder on irrigated land for the stabilization of a large area of agricultural land surrounding the irrigated parts.
Anything the government can do to provide the farmers in that part of Saskatchewan with twenty or thirty acres of irrigated land will certainly go a long way toward providing agricultural stability. I think what hon. members are interested in is what the government actually intends to do. If the government announced that it was going ahead with the building of the South Saskatchewan river dam I believe it would receive unanimous approval of the project from all sides of the house. I do not know of one group in the house that has opposed this suggestion. I believe that irrespective of which part of Canada we represent, we are all good Canadians and at all times we will consider favourably legislation that will benefit any particular province. Certainly the government of Saskatchewan is not standing in the way of that development.
On February 10 the premier of Saskatchewan in a letter to the Minister of Agriculture agreed that the Saskatchewan government would go ahead with its share of the cost of

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the project just as soon as the federal government would make a definite announcement. So all we are waiting for is an announcement by the Minister of Agriculture that the government of Canada is prepared to proceed. Because of the support of this project from all sides of the house, and because of the great advantages which would flow from the construction of that dam, I urge upon the minister when he speaks this evening to tell us when the government will be prepared to embark upon this much-needed project.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I notice that one of the members from Ontario has risen. But I think probably I should reply to some of the arguments which have been presented, most of which have had to do with the western part of Canada, and that part of our farm economy which has to do more particularly with the prairie provinces. If he will permit me to do that now, I would prefer to discuss the other matters when I have completed this discussion.
This afternoon one question which was raised, and which I think probably I should say something about-it is not quite in the classification to which I have just referred- was that having to do with the marketing of potatoes. The matter was discussed by an hon. member from New Brunswick. Reference also was made to marketing plans being carried out in Prince Edward Island, as well as in New Brunswick.
It was suggested that the plan now in effect was organized under the Agricultural Products Co-operative Marketing Act of 1939, and that is the case. I should say however that, when I made the statement which was referred to before the dinner hour to the effect that this plan should be applied in much the same way as some of the co-operative marketing plans have been applied to other products, the change in the procedure which was followed with regard to potatoes was not intended in any way to interfere with the procedure which would require to be followed if we were going to market the potato crop of the whole season.
As I stated on a previous occasion, those who represent the potato growers of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island came here some little time ago and represented to us that there were 2,000 carloads of potatoes of top grade to be marketed. The hon. member, who gives us most information with regard to potatoes, stated on that occasion that he did not think I had set the figure sufficiently high. There has been some evidence since to indicate that probably he was right and that there were more potatoes than our officials had stated were to be marketed
'Mr. Argue.]
at that time in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Nevertheless the figures which I used on that occasion were presented to us by those who were asking for assistance, and that being the case I thought they would pretty well cover the quantity which would be marketed.
Two boards were set up, one in New Brunswick and one in Prince Edward Island, to deal with the potatoes in the two provinces. I suggested that they could best gain experience with which to set up similar organizations to market the coming year's crop if they made an attempt to market what was left of this year's crop under a plan of that kind. They accepted the advice and have carried out the plan of attempting to market the potatoes which were left.
We suggested to them that after discussion with the two plants which process potatoes into starch they said they would be prepared to pay 60 cents a barrel for potatoes to be utilized in the making of starch. I think it was agreed by all parties to the arrangement that 60 cents a barrel was not a sufficiently high price for grade A potatoes which could be used for table purposes, that table potatoes should bring a higher price than potatoes to be used in the making of starch. But in any case the highest price the starch producers thought they could pay for the potatoes was 60 cents, and they agreed to pay that. Therefore 60 cents was made the advance payment to the farmers on all potatoes delivered to the board.
It was understood that as large a percentage as possible of the potatoes would be sold for table use and it was hoped that they would bring at least $1.20. However, they would be sold for whatever price could be obtained on the market. After the results of the experiment had been obtained a full report would be made to the government as to what the returns had been for all the potatoes. We agreed that we would contribute something toward the pool that was set up that would make it possible for a further distribution to the producers. The maximum amount set was $300,000.
We have not yet had reports which make it possible for us to give consideration to what the payment ought to be and therefore I am not in a position to say what the final payment will be. We had a request by wire today from one province indicating that sales have been higher in quantity than were anticipated and they ask for a reconsideration of the amount which would be paid^ in, but the agreement up to the moment is" that up to $300,000 would be available to take care of providing a higher return at the end of the marketing of what was left of this year's crop.

That is applying tne principle of the Agricultural Products Co-operative Marketing Act of 1939 to the marketing of part of the season's crop.


Mr. McLure:: Is $300,000 available to Prince Edward Island and a similar amount available to New Brunswick?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; the total figure is
$300,000 to the two boards which are operating together on the plan.


Heber Harold Hatfield: Is no payment to be made for sales made in (the fall at very low prices?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is nothing in the agreement that has anything to do with sales made before the agreement was signed. The agreement covers potatoes which had not been sold at the time it was signed.


Heber Harold Hatfield: As I understand it, the 1939 marketing act covers the whole season.


James Garfield Gardiner: It can be made to cover a whole season, but in this case it was not.


Heber Harold Hatfield: It should.


James Garfield Gardiner: If it is indicated by those
who are operating the board and by those who produce potatoes that this is a suitable plan to apply to 1951, then an agreement will be made in advance and they will go on from there to market. But there was no agreement made with regard to 1950 potatoes until a few weeks ago when this one was entered into. This indicates something of the principle which is followed in one of the pieces of legislation referred to this afternoon as being helpful. I do not think that I need to say anything more at the moment with regard to potatoes. By the time we get down to the particular item I may have more information that I can give.
There is another piece of legislation which does not have to do with the two matters that have been discussed most of this afternoon, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. This was referred to a few moments ago by the hon. member for Assiniboia, and has been referred to on two or three occasions by the hon. member for Peace River and by other hon. members, particularly from Alberta. I disagree a little with those who suggest that the matter which has been referred to as affecting the Peace River country at the present moment was not considered at the time amendments were made to the act a year ago. It was discussed fully and the very question which has arisen was discussed at that time. While we were discussing it I think I said that we ought to try out the amendments which had been made for at least a year, and then have another look at them. There may be this weakness in that suggestion, that if there should be cases that ought to have
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been dealt with this year we may not have all the information necessary if it were thought wise later to pass legislation which might be retroactive.
I want to repeat what I said last session and made very clear when we were discussing the matter in committee. At that time I said we as a government did not think it should be the practice of municipalities, provincial governments or the federal government, if we had control of any land, to bring land into cultivation unless there was a very good chance that it would be able to operate without help under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. For that reason we stated there could be no question about land coming in that had been removed from government control prior to this act being placed upon the statute books. That land had been dealt with in certain ways; individuals had been encouraged to go upon it, and as far as that land was concerned it should remain under the act automatically. However, we did question the advisability of any government going into areas where it had been shown that in nine years out of ten the farmers had required assistance under this act, and putting still more people on land there. Under the P.F.R.A. we are spending money to get people out of those areas. We are setting up pastures and providing water sup-piies in those pastures. It is costing us some millions of dollars to get people off that kind of land, and we do not think that under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act they should be given help to get back on it. I believe the hon. member for Peace River agrees 100 per cent with that idea.


Solon Earl Low: Yes, I do.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not so sure that the hon. member for Assiniboia agrees with it to that extent.


Hazen Robert Argue: I do not agree at all.


James Garfield Gardiner: That means, of course, that the area he is thinking about is one from which people have been moved off the land.


Hazen Robert Argue: No.


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps not the particular land he has in mind, but in the area I am sure there must be a good deal of land which people have moved off, some of which we have fenced into pastures because we know it is not advisable for people to settle there. Well, we rather discourage the (giving of prairie farm assistance on land brought undersettlement in those areas. I know the Alberta; government agrees with us because they said so at the time. This land referred to in northern Alberta, however, is in a different category. Admittedly; it is land that has not
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had settlement, with perhaps very little settlement in the district. It is new land. The same is true in northern Saskatchewan. At the time there was some question in my mind, and I think in the minds of other members of the committee, as to whether that land should be denied the right to come under the legislation. With regard to that land, and a limited amount of land in other parts of the province, we suggested that we operate under the act for a year and then bave another look at it.
I want to disagree with one suggestion made this afternoon. From the first it was never intended that this act should take care of hailed land, and there is good reason for that. Any man can insure his land against hail. If he does not do so that is a choice he makes himself. Most farmers in western Canada do insure their land against hail. However, we found it almost impossible in administering the act to enforce the provision that if a man is hailed out he is not paid. It was almost impossible to decide between those who were dried out and those who were hailed out, so in practically all cases we have permitted land to be considered for payment where hail has destroyed the crop on exactly the same basis as land where the crop was destroyed in some other way. But I repeat that in those areas where governments have permitted land to be brought under cultivation, and where it can be said, as was said this afternoon, that in eight years out of ten those areas would have good crops, it was never intended that this legislation should apply. Our experience has been that generally speaking when you get eight crops out of ten you are net so badly off, particularly if one of the two crops lost was destroyed as a result of hail. In that event the individual has scarcely done everything possible to look after himself if he has not insured his crop against hail.
Finally let me point out that we have not had a complete year of operation under this legislation as it was amended last year. I suggest that if we do give any consideration to the matter it should be after one year of operation, so if there are to be any amendments we should not have them this session but next.


Robert Fair: Then make them retroactive.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have suggested to our people that where claims are made they get all the information so we can decide at the end of the year whether or not those claims are justified; and I do not think we can go further than that this year.
I wanted to say something in regard to the reference this afternoon by the hon. member 
for Lake Centre-I am sorry he is not here at the moment-to the reports that have been put out toy the 'bureau of statistics with regard to farm income. These reports are given to the press in the form I hold in my hand. If you read the press reports carefully you will find that they say what is in this report I have, but I have not heard anyone who has discussed the matter in this house discuss what is in this report. This is a very full report on farm income for 1950 as compared with 1949, and here is what it says in regard to the question that has been quite fully discussed this afternoon and at other times:
The decline in the 1950 farm cash income is largely attributable to a drop in the cash receipts from the sale of grains and substantially smaller grain equalization and adjustment payments. While nearly $50 million were paid to prairie farmers in the form of participation and equalization payments during the past year, approximately $220 million were disbursed in 1949.
Now, the $220 million is just the amount which it was stated in the press the farmers' income was down in 1950 as compared with 1949. It says it was down because these participation payments had been made in the previous years.
A lowering of the initial price to producers and a poor quality crop combined to offset increased marketings during 1950 and to give a cash income from the sale of wheat of $380 million, almost 20 per cent below the returns realized in 1949. Commencing August 1, 1950, the initial price to producers on No. 1 northern wheat in store at the lakehead was lowered from $1.75 to $1.40 per bushel. Severe frosts in the prairie provinces during August caused! considerable damage to the crop and sharply reduced! the average grade.
What has happened to that since that time? There has been another payment on the wheat. It is true that it was not made before the first of January, but there has been another payment on the wheat of 20 cents per bushel. Then, in addition to that, there has been the payment on the oats, and the payment on the barley, that was delivered prior to January 1, 1951. Although I do not want to start another debate on it, there was another $65 million which was paid on some of the crops of the past. If you take all those figures, put them together and apply them on the payments made on the crops of 1950- which will eventually be done when those amounts are adjusted-you will find there is very little difference between the income for 1949 and 1950.


Percy Ellis Wright: You will find a difference between 1949 and 1951 if you are going to keep that up.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend has been dreaming that for the last fifteen years, and he has always been wrong. He has always been one year ahead of the actual statistics

in telling us that the farmers are going to suffer. As a matter of fact he now admits that the argument he has been pressing on this house on the last two or three occasions he has been on his feet, to the effect that the farmers' income is away down, turns out not to be correct. The farmers' income was almost exactly the same in 1950 as it was in 1949.


An hon. Member:: His expenses have gone up.


James Garfield Gardiner: His expenses have jumped some, yes, but his returns are just about the same. Now, I believe that should be said, because there are some arguments being used which are based upon the suggestion that his income is away down, and they are not fair to the people who are in other lines of activity in Canada, nor are they altogether fair to the farmer. I am going to tell you why. There is a great deal of lip service paid to the farmers of this country. Scarcely anyone ever gets on his feet outside this house- perhaps I should not say inside the house- without saying that agriculture is the basic industry in this country.


Mr. Browne (St. John's West):: Is that not right?


James Garfield Gardiner: Certainly it is right. If they would stop there, it would not be so bad, but they do not stop there. Agriculture is the basic industry in this country-I think I had better agree that it is not always outside this house, either. Then, after saying agriculture is the basic industry in this country, they completely pass over the fact that up until recently wheat brought more new wealth into this country than any other product- gold, oil or anything else. You can raise more interest in this house by discussing gold or oil-


An hon. Member:: Or subsidies.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, the subsidies to newspapers. You can raise more interest in this house discussing those items than you can by discussing wheat. When we discuss wheat members are inclined to say, "Oh, well, this is a day off for us." That is not very far from the truth, as most members in this house will agree. Let me repeat that more new money has come into this country from outside of it-if one were to take the last ten years one could say more than from any other source-in order to repay those of us who are producing surpluses to send out to get the wherewithal to buy the products of other countries. I believe we ought to emphasize that, and keep it before the people who are constantly referring to the wheat grower
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as though he were the poor relation of this country. The wheat grower is not the poor relation of this country.
I should refer to something else that was said this afternoon. I was going to correct it at the time, but I did not. Someone was arguing that the marketing of wheat ought to be administered by the Department of Agriculture. I might agree with that, but it is not. As a matter of fact, it has not been. The thing that I object to in what was said this afternoon is that it was put in the Department of Trade and Commerce because of its great importance at the time it was put there. As a matter of fact, wheat did not have very much importance in this country in 1896, and it did not have very much more in 1897. Wheat was put into the Department of Trade and Commerce at the time the Canada Grain Act was first passed or the Manitoba Grain Act, away back around 1900. in order to put sufficient activity into the department to warrant placing a man there as minister of customs and trade. This man had been looked upon as a financial critic in this country over a period of years in opposition and they wanted to take a younger man into the government as minister of finance. They gave the older man the smaller department, and wheat was put into it at the time when there was very little wheat to market.


An hon. Member:: Now they should give the small man the wheat.


James Garfield Gardiner: That might help; and it
has remained in the Department of Trade and Commerce ever since. On the last occasion when the matter was discussed here I recall the then acting leader of the opposition stating when I had made the remark that two heads were better than one, and that the Minister of Trade and Commerce and I agree very well-when we both offered opinions on a matter, it went along very well- the then leader of the opposition suggested that would be all right if either one of them were a real head. My remark at the time was that there was only one political party in Canada at that time that did not have a real head. I am not going to say that tonight because we have a leader in the house leading that party. I am going to say that we should realize the importance of wheat in creating a sound economic position in the Dominion of Canada.
Now, that brings me to the discussion of a question that was raised this afternoon, and that is the international wheat agreement. Over the years, in spite of what we have been thinking and saying in recent years, wheat has been dealt with under

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different governments and in different ways. I have in my hand the London wheat agreement of 1933. It is sometimes suggested that wheat agreements are a product of socialism in Britain; at other times it is suggested that wheat agreements are a product of the minds of this government; and at still other times it is suggested that they are the product of the thinking of farm organizations.
The first international wheat agreement that we ever had was set up in 1933. When I look back to see who were the gentlemen who were there from Canada to set it up, I find that one was the then prime minister of Canada, the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett. He was the chairman of the committee that met in London in order to set it up. I find that another was the Hon. M. A. MacPherson, provincial treasurer of the province of Saskatchewan; and the third was Mr. Norman A. Robertson of the Department of External Affairs, who is still with us.
Those three men went to London to attend a meeting which made an agreement which came to be known as the London agreement, under which the wheat of the world was to be marketed through an international board. That agreement was signed by the government of the day and agreed to. The only reason it did not function was that the government of the Argentine broke the agreement later and it did not go into effect. But we set up in Canada four different organizations to operate under this agreement. One was set up here at Ottawa and one was set up in each of the three prairie provinces. Legislation was brought into the house in each of the three prairie provinces to set up the machinery to provide for the operation of those boards. I am not going into the detail in connection with it. I am only giving the history because of something that I read today in the Searle letter which is being quoted largely in the discussions in connection with this question. In that letter they say this, quoting from Patrick Henry:
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
Then they go on to suggest that we should not judge the future by the past, and that we should not even judge the present by the past. Everyone in this committee knows that under the operations of the grain exchange, which is sometimes called the free marketing of grain, we never received, over a five-year period, a dollar a bushel for our wheat; never at any time under that system did we receive a dollar a bushel for our wheat over a five-year period. The only times that we have ever gone over $1.50 a bushel for our wheat were under

boards set up by governments which operated for the purpose of getting every cent they could for the farmers.
It is obvious that the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett, the leader of the government back in 1933, was convinced that that was the proper way to have the wheat marketed. It is true that we did not always agree with his methods of applying boards; but I recall that on the first occasion that I ever discussed board marketing of wheat, I discussed it on a platform in Calgary when the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett was the other speaker; we were both supporting the pooling of wheat. That was before he became prime minister of Canada and before I was a member of the government of Canada or had anything to do with it. We were there as western public men, speaking on the platform in Calgary; he was a supporter of the board method of marketing wheat and so was I. I say that tonight in order to point up my suggestion that we should be extremely careful in the criticisms that we make.
Nearly everyone who has risen on the other side of the house has stated that we ought to do something about the international wheat agreement. I have the international wheat agreement here in my hand; and in spite of what has been said, I cannot find anything in it which gives any government the right to change the price of wheat or even to suggest that the price of wheat ought to be changed, under this agreement, inside the four years. The section which was read this afternoon, and which has been read on other occasions, is on page 24, and numbered 5. It is under article VI. Article VI sets out, in subsection 1, the maximum and the floor prices of wheat. Then it goes on, under subsections 2, 3 and 4, to deal with the methods by which you are going to adjust the payments in different countries and under different facts that may arise in connection with the value of currency, in order to meet the situation. Subsection 5 states as follows:
If any exporting or importing country represents to the executive committee that any price equivalent established under paragraph 2, 3 or 4-
It does not say "under paragraph 1".
-of this article is, in the light of current transportation or exchange rates or market premiums or discounts, no longer fair, the executive committee shall consider the matter and may, in consultation with the advisory committee on price equivalents, make such adjustment as it considers advisable.
I again submit that that does not say it was anticipated at the time this agreement was made that somebody was going to come along in two years' time and suggest that it ought to be changed. I can scarcely understand how persons who advocate the bulk

system of marketing as against the open-market system, can suggest that you make an agreement to last for two years, three years or four years and then that you come along in the middle of the agreement and say: Now we are going to change that. In other words, you have not a long-term agreement at all.
If I understand the views of the farm movement, and more particularly that part of the farm movement that is associated with the marketing of grain, the situation is that they believe first in the wheat board method of marketing grain and they would apply it one hundred per cent to the marketing of all grains. They would apply it not only to wheat but to all other grains. That is their belief, whether we agree with them or not. Then when they pass that mark, they say: We are in favour of having an international agreement-and they have always fought for it-that covers a period of time. The period of time that they have insisted upon over the years was about five years. When this agreement was made it was for four years-and not for five. I venture to say that no matter what anyone thinks about it now, there was not anyone who really sat in on the drawing up of that agreement-and the leaders of the farm movement sat in on it; that is, all the leaders of the farm movement that are associated with the marketing of grain sat in on it-who expected that there was going to be a change within the four years.


Robert Fair: May I ask the minister a question at this point?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Robert Fair: Did the leaders of the farm movement marketing grain have anything to say in connection with the price obtained under that agreement?


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, they were there as
advisers. Now that you have asked me the question, I think they had just about as much to say as anybody had to say, excepting a very few. The people who always have the most to say about a thing of that kind are the people who have something to sell and the people who are paying for it. We do not have to look very far to find out who had the money on this occasion and who had the grain. It has been discussed tonight. It has been pointed out that under some changes that have been made in the agreement, which do not concern prices, the United States now delivers more wheat under this agreement than Canada, although when the agreement was drawn we were to deliver considerably more than the United States. But circumstances have developed since which have changed that.
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Something was said by the hon. member for Assiniboia to which I think I should refer. The suggestion was made that we ought to have a parity price for wheat. Well, now, how did they arrive at $1.80 when the question was being discussed at the time the agreement was formed? The first suggestion was that the ceiling should be $1.50, and the floor should be $1, and that those prices should prevail over the five years. In the meantime parity in the United States rose to $2 for wheat. The United States government guarantees 90 per cent of parity and 90 per cent of $2 is 1.80. The government of the United States guarantees the farmer $1.80.


Hazen Robert Argue: It was $1.99 last year.


James Garfield Gardiner: It was $1.80 at the time they were discussing the question. The United States government agreed to a figure of $1.80. That' is five cents higher than what the British considered agreeing to up to the last few days of the discussions. They suggested that it ought to be $1.75 when they took under advisement the highest figure that they thought should be paid. But eventually there was a compromise between the two and they all agreed to $1.80, which was 90 per cent of the United States parity price. That is the way it was done. So far as we were concerned we said that since the United States which has the cash and a great deal of the wheat, and the British who are the buyers of most of the wheat, the largest block of it, at least, are in agreement, there is no reason why we should not sign too. We have gone along with the arrangement. Australia said the same thing. Every other signer of the contract said the same thing.
We are all in this together. If the suggestion made a few moments ago to the effect that the United States is ready to reconsider prices is correct, well, the United States will reconsider it, and I have no doubt that again most of us will go along. But to say to this government that it is in a position even to suggest, let alone demand, what ought to be done in connection with the matter is to take the wrong attitude with regard to it; and I do not think that the leaders of the farm movement who are interested in the marketing of wheat are taking that attitude. I wanted to say that because we ought to keep this thing moving along both east and west on the basis of the facts as they are, and not get into the position of shouting for something which may suit people other than those who are in agreement with the plan which is being followed.

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Again coming back to the Searle report, I find that they say we have lost 37J cents a bushel. We have been told in this house that we have lost 37 cents. All I want to say with regard to that is I am still satisfied to go along with the people who a few years ago put forth the arguments and the facts which convinced both the larger political parties in this country that this type of marketing was a good thing for the farmers. If you go back far enough you will find that we were all opposed to it, but the farm movement eventually convinced us that they were right. I have had no reason for changing my opinion. I still think they were right, and so I believe that we ought to go along under this agreement, meeting the conditions which are written into the agreement to the end of the four years, and then if we think the agreement was not good enough, let us try another one which will be better. In the meantime I think the only way that we are going to justify this kind of trading is to carry out what is written into the agreement.
I wanted to say that because I did not want anyone to misunderstand the position 1 will be taking with the Minister of Trade and Commerce or anyone else. In fact I intend, when this matter is being discussed outside the house or in it, to put forth the arguments which have been put forth by the farm organizations from time to time. I believe they were right in the beginning. I believe they are still right, and I base my decisions upon this little piece that I read to the committee a few moments ago. Experience teaches me that we are right; and I think it is better to take a little less for the product when production is at the peak and get a little more for it when production is not at the peak, even though sometimes, if you take a short enough period to do your calculating, you may be a little down in returns as compared with others.


Percy Ellis Wright: May I ask a question? The minister says that he agrees with the farm movement in regard to the international wheat agreement. Does he agree with them also on their stand that the domestic market should pay the class II price for wheat?


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, that is another matter about which it is a little difficult to be too confident. After all, if one goes back to his own sound principles, no matter to which party he belongs, in connection with matters of that kind, I think he usually concludes that countries that do keep their costs of production at about the same level as other countries with which they are dealing are more likely to come out of the general run [Mr. Gardiner.l
of transactions in a sound position economically. I do not know whether it would be a good thing to raise the cost of living to all consumers in Canada any higher than the cost of living is in the countries to which we deliver wheat. It may not be a good thing for us in the long run. I would not give a snap judgment on this question yes or no.


Percy Ellis Wright: The cost of bread is higher in this country than in most countries, because it is subsidized in most countries.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not time to go into that in detail tonight; it is really not on my agenda, in any case, and I am discussing it only because others have discussed it tonight, and I am discussing it because I come from the section of the country that is concerned with it, apart altogether from what department I am in.
I now come to the South Saskatchewan project. Discussions tonight have been very much in line with the discussions that have taken place on previous occasions with regard to this project. I agree with the statement that was made by the hon. member for Assiniboia a few moments ago that if you were to put the question to this house tonight, or I think on any other night, we perhaps could get a unanimous vote in favour of it; at least no one would get up and say that he was opposed to it. Again, if I may be pardoned, I might just suggest to the house that there was one previous occasion when that happened, but when it was all over there were many who did not agree. After all, a government is never excused for being wrong, no matter who supported it at the beginning.	And it is the government's
responsibility to be right. Some people say we were not right on another occasion, and that it cost the people something. I do not agree with them. My hon. friend from Winnipeg North Centre looks a little mysterious, as though he does not understand. Well, I will make him understand: Everyone in this house agreed that it was a good thing to have a wheat agreement with Great Britain-when it was put through. But not everybody agreed when it was all over.
And the same thing can happen in connection with projects of this kind, and because there is not anyone here more responsible for anybody wanting the South Saskatchewan dam than I am, I want to be sure that I am right this time-even if some people thought 1 was wrong last time, when I did not think I was, and do not yet.
There is nothing particularly new about this project. It is quite old. I made a little review of the history of it in order to carry

out what is said in the Searle suggestion that experience is a good thing. I find it has been discussed since away back about 1856.


John George Diefenbaker: 1854.


James Garfield Gardiner: It was first discussed by men sent out from the old department of the interior, even before we had a dominion of Canada-or from what was the forerunner of the department of the interior. They were sent out to look over that section of the country.
But, coming down to a much later date than that, a geological survey of a possible dam site was made by John A. Allan, consulting geologist, and a report prepared on July 9, 1943. In this report Professor Allan says:
I was previously acquainted with this part of the South Saskatchewan valley when in 1918 I examined the geology along the valley between Empress and Saskatoon.
And that is the very area we are talking about. Empress is on the Saskatchewan-Alberta boundary, and Saskatoon is a few miles below the point we are proposing for this dam.
To come down to more modern times, as early as 1918, Professor Allan was asked to make a report. At that time natural resources were all in the federal government. And so it is evident that the federal government did have some ideas, even back there, that this might be a possibility.
Now, following that up, under P.F.R.A., we had Professor Allan appointed again, and then later on in 1947 we had another report on it which has been tabled in the house. Those reports are all favourable. I must say to the committee that all my reports to the government have been favourable, and they will continue to be favourable. I have reported to the government on each occasion we have obtained a report to the effect that in my opinion it would be a good thing to build this dam.


An hon. Member:: This year?


James Garfield Gardiner: Three or four years ago- five years ago, for that matter-every time there has been a report. I think it would be a good thing to build this dam.
Now, I am not an engineer; but I think everybody understands that I think that putting a body of water anywhere in the prairie provinces is a good thing. The hon. member for Saskatoon made a remark this afternoon which I found difficulty in understanding. He said he did not know why we put the dam in Saskatoon, and he has suggested that it might have been as well without it.
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Well, I will tell him this, that I think now that dam has been there about twelve or thirteen years-


Robert Ross (Roy) Knight: If I might interrupt; the minister has misinterpreted my statement. I certainly did not mean it that way. I do not know what he understood.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is the way it sounded. But if this does nothing more than give the hon. member an opportunity to correct it, I think he will be pleased after he has read Hansard. I say that because I do not know of anything that is a greater asset to the city of Saskatoon than the fact that they have that dam.
On the other hand there is another point involved in it. There is only one thing I find it difficult to settle in my own mind with regard to the South Saskatchewan dam; and I would not have been able to satisfy my own mind had it not been for the fact that we had the dam in Saskatoon. The last criticism I have heard about the South Saskatchewan dam was that the dam would fill up with silt. Well, I have said Yes, that it may fill up with silt, some time-but it will be a long time after we have gone.
What I wish to say about the Saskatoon dam is that it is only twelve feet high. I think at least as much water has been flowing over the Saskatoon dam every year as will ever go over the South Saskatchewan dam yearly. The same amount of sediment would be there as would be behind the bigger dam, and that silt has not filled up the area above the dam at Saskatoon. It still looks like a very nice lake, and if it does that with a 12-foot head of water over twelve or thirteen years, since the other dam will be 210 feet high I think it will take a lot of silt to fill up the 210-foot one if all the silt that comes down has not filled up the 12-foot one.


Solon Earl Low: About 150 years.


James Garfield Gardiner: Most of us will agree that it has done a good job if it stays there that long.
What about the lake itself? I am satisfied I cannot come before you at this time, or before any other body, and prove the case, if you check this dam on this project only from the point of view as to whether it will pay directly interest on the money that is invested in it. I do not think I could do it to the satisfaction of the members of the House of Commons.


John George Diefenbaker: Have not the engineers given a favourable report?


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, they have given a favourable report. But a favourable report does not make that too sure. I think the best

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answer I can give to the question which that raises is a statement which is made in the report we had when we built the St. Mary dam. This has to do with the Lethbridge-Northern irrigation plan which is just north of Lethbridge, and the one which most nearly agrees in all of the facts in relation to it with the areas that will be affected by the building of the other dam.
The experience with the area in connection with the Lethbridge-Northern is something like this: they sold debentures under a 1915 Alberta act, and those debentures were guaranteed by the government of Alberta. They found that the cost was about $57 an acre for putting in their irrigation system. They tried to operate on that basis and collect from the farmer. The provincial government has paid the cost to the farmer concerned down from $57 an acre to $17 an acre. In other words, they have provided $40 an acre out of the treasury of Alberta, as I understand it. The hon. member for Peace River will know about this, because he was connected with it at the time.


Solon Earl Low: That is right.


James Garfield Gardiner: They found it necessary to do that. I venture to say that men can get up in the house and prove that at least $25 million out of the $103 million would never be paid back to the government of Canada under any part of the scheme; and they might be able to prove that even $40 million might not be paid back. I am going to read what an independent investigator said about the northern Lethbridge project, and then I want you to ask me the question: Do you think it was worth while? Here is what was said:
In 1924, when the Lethbridge northern district was first irrigated there were only about 300 families in the area. Now about 900 families occupy farms on the project. Belts of fine trees shelter small fruits, flowers, and vegetables which grow in abundance. It is estimated that the project directly supports 10,000 people. A railway parallels a gravelled highway to Lethbridge and power lines bring the conveniences of the city to the farms. At Picture Butte, near the centre of the district, there is an up to date sugar factory, beautiful homes, trees and green boulevards. A few miles west of Picture Butte is Park lake now a provincial park, with ornamental and shade trees, a beach, dressing rooms, playground equipment, stoves, picnic tables, and benches. A few years ago all this was treeless, waterless, drought scorched prairie.
I do not think you could get a better description of a conversion of an uninhabitable area into one that is inhabited by people with a very considerable degree of comfort. I continue:
The social and community advantages resulting from irrigation deserve special emphasis though these benefits can only be partly indicated statistically. These advantages were observed by the committee on all projects visited and , a good

example is found in the Lethbridge northern irrigation district. Here an area of some 360 square miles, equivalent to ten townships, has been transformed in less than two decades from sparsely settled prairie subject to periodical crop failures and soil drifting to a thriving community of farm homes, towns and villages. During this period the number of farm holdings increased from 300 to over 900 and the population, rural and urban, increased from 1,500 to 10,000. As a result educational facilities have been greatly improved by the establishment of modern consolidated schools; electrical power has become available; a gravelled highway has been constructed through the project; a branch railway line constructed since the district was erected provides shipping facilities; and a park established in connection with a storage reservoir on the project provides recreational facilities for the surrounding area.
Again I repeat that the putting of a lake 135 miles long and 185 feet deep at the dam in the middle of the best farming section of the prairie provinces will do something which nature has done in other places. We all know that all nature has to do to create a lake is to leave a bar of rock across a stream. But nature did not do that here. However, all the facilities are there to do it. What we are asking the two governments to do is to provide the ways and means of putting that bar up which will in turn create a lake. With the lake there I am sure that in two decades you can do to that whole area what was done in two decades to the northern Lethbridge area.
Some hon. members are going up to Chalk River tomorrow. Some hon. members were with me when we went to Churchill. Other hon. members have been to other places. But if hon. members want to have their eyes opened as they have never been opened before, if they have never been out there, I suggest that they take a plane to Medicine Hat.


Mr. Wylie:: Hear, hear.


James Garfield Gardiner: But do not stop in Medicine Hat.


Some hon. Members:: Hear, hear.


James Garfield Gardiner: Take a car out of Medicine Hat. If you let us know, I feel sure we can arrange to have the P.F.R.A. provide busses to drive you from Medicine Hat to Lethbridge any time around July 1 or the end of June. If you do that and you are not one hundred per cent an advocate of this plan after you come back, then I miss my guess.
While I have driven the road many times before, I drove it for the first time last year at that particular time of year. I decided to go to the stampede and I was accompanied by three . people. During the drive south from Medicine Hat they kept wondering for mile after mile why people stayed there.

Knowing what was ahead of the people who were staying there I did not say anything. About the middle of the afternoon we crossed a road allowance and then everyone in the car thought they were in another country. They felt sure it was not the same country they had been driving through. They were reminded of trips they had made to California and other places. The growth was what you would expect in semitropical areas. The difference between the two places was such that you could not understand why people were living under one set of conditions in one place and under another set of conditions right alongside.
I said to them that the reason those people had been staying there for twenty years was that they had been led to believe that somebody was going to put water on their land and make it look like the country we had entered. We have just completed the St. Mary river dam which will put water on that land. What we suggest now is that we should make the central part of Saskatchewan the same.
What does the government permit me to say to you tonight? They permit me to say this: They know I am convinced, they know the people out west are convinced, they think likely when we are all through that they are going to be convinced also, but they want to be sure that they are right when they make the decision to go full blast ahead. They asked me to do one thing more for them. I said, "What is the one thing more?" "There are one, two or three experts that we would like to have look at this thing. We are not going to ask you to get any more engineering reports because we think you have all the information; will you submit that information to one, two or three experts that we will agree upon and let them tell us whether they are as much convinced as you are?" I have agreed to do that. I think it is a reasonable suggestion and I hope we will be able to get it done before we meet again, even if we meet this fall.


Major James William Coldwell: May I make a suggestion to
the minister? Why not take the members of the government out with him and drive from Medicine Hat to Taber and demonstrate to them what has been demonstrated to many of us?


Stanley Howard Knowles: Take the treasury board
along, too.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would like to do that. In concluding my remarks, I want to say that I do not think I can convince this house or the experts that you can sit down with a pencil and paper and prove that something is going to provide the interest and pay back
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all the money put out on it. But I think I can convince them that twice as many people can live in Saskatchewan if that dam is put in. That means our population will be going up instead of down as it is at present. When I repeat what I said a few moments ago, namely what wheat has meant to the rest of Canada; when I am able to say, as I am convinced, that there will be twice as many people in a certain area to do business with people in other parts of Canada; then I am sure all the rest of Canada will be interested in the building of this dam. My old friend the late John MacNicol used to stand before us in this house and make those of us who came from the west ashamed that we did not have the information he had. He would go out there and walk these streams and study them, and he had every fact at his fingertips. He would tell us what a great thing it would be for the city of Toronto if only we would do this job.


An hon. Member:: And he was defeated.


James Garfield Gardiner: As my hon. friend says, he
was defeated; but it was not for that reason, and he had been here a long time. I only mention that tonight because I do not think this is a party matter, or something we ought to be bickering about. I believe it is something we should be trying to get done; and to get it done I think it will be only necessary to put before the members of this house the statement I will place before the government, coming from experts they choose. Then I am sure hon. members will say this will be a good thing for this country.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Does the fact that these experts are going to be called in necessarily mean that the project cannot be proceeded with this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, we have a million dollars in the estimates. We can continue to spend that, but I do not think we could have gone ahead with the letting of the contract this fall in any case. Hon. members coming from western Canada know that in the letting of a contract on which work can proceed for only six months out in our country, unless you have everything ready at the beginning of the season there is not much use trying to get on with it in that year. We have enough money to put us in the position that if the decision is favourable we can be all ready to go ahead another year. Then if funds are available, if we are not in international difficulties which would slow it up, we can go along just as quickly as if we were to start now.


Major James William Coldwell: Have the minister and the government agreed on the experts?

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James Garfield Gardiner: No, but we have agreed to agree at a later time. I do not think there will be any difficulty about that.
Mr. Cold well:	The minister said he
hoped that before we met again something might be agreed upon.


James Garfield Gardiner: A name was mentioned today. I do not know the man personally, and I could not very well mention his name here; but I am quite satisfied that the opinion of the gentleman who was named would be generally acceptable in this country.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: If the opinion of the experts is favourable this year, could the minister give the committee any assurance that next year construction will definitely commence?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would not want to do that. So many things are developing these days that one cannot be sure of anything. All I can say is that the government is favourably inclined, as we are all favourably inclined. We just want to be sure on this last point. I think that is reasonable, and I have agreed to it.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I am sure this will be a bitter disappointment to the minister as it will be to the people of Saskatchewan.


Harry Oliver White: I hope the few words I have to say to the minister may be as convincing as what the minister has said to us this evening. First I should like to comment briefly on this irrigation project in the west. I believe all Canadians are anxious to see the natural resources of this country developed to the fullest possible extent, but I am reminded of the tourist who went to Egypt. He was shown the pyramids and was told it took 150 years to build them. His comment was, "Oh, I guess it was a government project". I hope we do not have to wait that long to have this project constructed. There are also those who are a little sceptical, who think the greatest activity seems to occur at about the time of a federal election. After listening to the minister this evening it would seem that about 1952 or 1953 might be the most opportune time to commence this work.
I did not intend to deal with these broad subjects this evening; I wanted to get down to the details of some of the problems affecting the farmers. Since everyone seems to have had something to say about the wheat agreement, however, I might as well mention it also. This is the type of marketing for which the western members have been fighting as long as I can remember, but now they have it they do not want it.
I want to say a word or two about taxation. Taxation affects everyone, but some more

than others. It was Edward Gibbon, the historian, who said that in the final analysis all taxation falls on agriculture. When a tax boost is announced the better organized groups in the country immediately add the tax to the price of the product they sell. We have seen that happen just recently. The less organized groups pass on as much of the tax as possible to the ultimate consumer. Agriculture is in the position that it can add no tax to the price of the product it sells. So no matter what the tax may be on the articles the farmers buy, they have to pay it.
Today I had a complaint from a constituent with respect to the basic herd of a farmer who sells his livestock. I know the minister will say this is a matter for the Department of National Revenue, but I hope he will work in co-operation with that department to bring about a solution to this problem. This man went to his legal adviser and said he was going to have a clearing auction sale of his livestock. He asked about the problem of setting up a basic herd and was advised that it was not necessary to do so, that he could establish that with the income tax department at the conclusion of the sale. Then to his sorrow he found that was too late, that a time limit had been set and that this had to be done at least a month before the auction sale. Now this man finds himself in a position shared by many others in this country. After long years of thrift and industry he is now going to be legally robbed of what was his by the income tax people. It seems to me it would not be a very difficult problem to establish to the satisfaction of the income tax branch the fact that he had twenty or thirty cattle or whatever the number might be during the year or years prior to the auction sale, not just the month before. Now, no other group or class in the country is required to set up a similar workable plan before they sell any article or articles. I would suggest, therefore, that the Minister of National Revenue look into this matter. If an ordinary investor buys stock which he sells after the value has increased, that is a capital gain-unless he happens to be a dealer in stocks or bonds. If I buy real estate and the value increases, when I sell it that is a capital gain.


The Chairman:: Order. I believe it would be better to discuss that matter on the estimates of the Department of National Revenue.


Harry Oliver White: I was just referring, sir, to the effect that taxation has on agriculture. I believe I have made the point clear so I shall not press it further, except to say that when livestock is held

over a period of years once the basic herd is established, it is only the increase that is taxable as income. I am asking the department to look into this and see if some change can be made.
I wish to point out also that nearly everyone has been saying something about the cost of living index. I have here a report of the dominion bureau of statistics dated September 22,	1950, over the name of H. F.
Greenway. It is called the "Market Basket" and refers to the requirements of the average family. They take the purchasing power of an hour's labour in 1926 as one. This basket represents, first of all, all living requirements such as food, fuel and light; shelter, rent, clothing, home furnishings and services. Then there is a miscellaneous item which includes health maintenance, personal care, recreation, transportation and insurance. Compared with 1926 an hour's labour in 1939 would buy one-third more of all the living requirements. In 1949 it would buy one and six-tenths more. Of the miscellaneous items, compared with 1926, an hour's labour today will buy almost twice as much as it did in 1926.
Then I come to the Economic Analyst of October, 1950, which gives the average annual market margins on nine selected commodities from 1935 to 1949. In 1935 the margin on potatoes was 9-5 cents on 15 pounds, but in 1949 the margin was 26-6 cents; eggs, all grades, in 1935 the margin was 7-7 per dozen, in 1949 it was 15-4; half-pound packages of cheese, the margin in 1935 was 9 cents, and in 1949 it was 20-4 cents; common quality beef, in 1935 the margin was 6-8 cents per pound and in 1949 it was 17-5. This illustrates where some of the consumers' dollar goes that the farmer does not get. The farmers' share of the retail prices of these same nine selected commodities is given. I shall quote four of them as examples. In 1935 the farmers' share in potatoes was 50 per cent, while in 1949 he only got 49 per cent; in eggs the farmer got 70 per cent of the retail price in 1935, and in 1949 he got 73 per cent; in common quality beef he got 51 1 per cent in 1935 and 64-3 per cent in 1949; in canned tomatoes, in 1935 he got 15-8 per cent and in 1949 he got 20-6 per cent. This shows you, sir, that not all the money the consumer pays finds its way into the pockets of the farmer.
There is one other item I want to mention, and that is the stock foods and tonics that are sold to the farmers for livestock feeding. There are many of these articles processed and manufactured in Canada, but some are imported. It has been proven to my satisfaction that one of the brands contains over
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forty per cent salt, and is sold at fabulous prices. These preparations are in competition with Canadian products that are required to meet higher standards. I discussed this with the Department of Agriculture officials some time ago, but nothing has been done. I hope that before too long this will be looked into by the department and some action taken.


Solon Earl Low: I should like to say a word or two about the Prairie Farm Assistance Act mentioned by the minister. The Minister of Agriculture stated that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act was not designed to take care of farmers whose crops were destroyed by hail. Originally, I believe, that was true; but in spite of that he admits that where hail has reduced the yield in any qualified district to eight bushels per acre or less, the Prairie Farm Assistance Act does pay some compensation. The minister has stated that anyone can insure his crop against hail, and that he should do so if he is wise. Possibly that point is well taken, but the minister knows that people are inclined to insure only when they feel there is a risk. In the Peace river country damaging hail storms are rare, and for that reason people do not feel that they face a risk. It would not pay the farmers in that part of the country to insure against hail year after year, at least they feel that way, and that is the manner in which they have conducted their affairs. It is only once in a great while that any section of the country is hailed out.
Our biggest hazard, of course, is frost. Sometimes hail and frost come together or one follows the other, so it becomes very difficult to tell which one has caused the yield to fall below the limit to qualify for compensation under the act. I believe, therefore, the minister must admit that it is not a strong argument to say that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act should not pay compensation on crops destroyed by hail in an area of that kind, because as I have pointed out the hail there would be just as rare as drought in some other sections.


James Garfield Gardiner: If I might make myself clear on that point, I am not arguing that there should not be a payment for hail there if there is going to be a payment at all. But I say that merely to argue that the crop was hailed out is not a good reason for bringing the district under the act.


Solon Earl Low: Yes, that is a fair statement, and that is what I was saying. It is not a strong argument against paying compensation. I am sure the minister did not mean it as a strong argument. There was this other point the minister raised. He said that in any district where a crop can be expected in eight

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out of ten years the farmers ought to be able to take care of themselves in the two bad years when they come. I should be inclined to agree with the minister in that statement if these facts that I shall cite had not been fully established as a result of experience over quite a number of years.
In the first place, in the Peace river country, widespread drought that drastically reduces the yield is only rare. In the second place severe frost and early snow are quite frequent. They are the great hazards, as I have already pointed out. Consequently grades suffer in many years. When grades suffer the returns to the farmers often fall very low. This hits all farmers and it is a serious matter.
The third important point is this. Most farmers whose cases I have been pleading here are comparatively new farmers. They are people who came into the country and took up land under the Alberta crown lease arrangement, covering a period of ten years. The lease arrangement is almost like a ten-year purchase plan. At the end of the ten-year period they got title to these lands. They have had only a few years' experience. Some have had only one, two or three years' experience up there. They have just got started, they are just digging in, as it were. They are facing this situation. In one of the early years of their farming experience in the Peace river country, along comes a tragic or drastic hailstorm, followed by an early frost that reduces the yield in many cases to nothing, and in many of them to much below the qualifying number of bushels. These people are in need. They cannot quite understand why, since they started farming, they should be required to pay the one per cent levy on what crops they market but are not to expect any compensation when their yield falls below eight or four bushels per acre. It is that group I plead for particularly, i would certainly ask the minister to give serious consideration to some change either in the act or in the regulation in order to enable compensation to be paid to them this year. Those people are finding it extremely difficult to meet the cost of putting in their crops-getting seed, buying fuel and repairs to machinery-this year. I should like to ask the minister this question: Has he considered this matter sufficiently to be able to say whether it would be possible to pay compensation on those lands without a change in the act? My feeling is, after studying the act, that it would not be possible. I do not know; I am not an expert.


James Garfield Gardiner: I must say that I missed the description of the land the hon. member spoke about.


Solon Earl Low: I beg the minister's pardon?


James Garfield Gardiner: I missed the description of the type of land the hon. member is speaking of, when I was asking my officials for some information.


Solon Earl Low: I merely asked this question. On these crown leases-which as I said amount practically to a ten-year purchase plan- where the farmers are paying in to the government of Alberta a percentage of their crops each year over a period of ten years, and at the end of that period they get their titles, would it be necessary, in the minister's judgment, to change the act before compensation can be paid on such land this year?


James Garfield Gardiner: My memory is that the act as we amended it last year provided for taking in some areas in the province of Alberta and also, I think, in Saskatchewan, where the lands had been leased by the government; but I think it confines it to those that were leased at a certain period.


Solon Earl Low: Yes; before 1940, I think.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Solon Earl Low: I was afraid that would be the case. On lands that were taken in since 1940, it would be impossible for the P.F.A.A. administration to pay compensation for the losses last fall, without a change in the act. If that is the case, is it impossible for the minister to bring in a slight change to the act this year, in order to take care of the situation? I think he will admit that it was not contemplated, when the 1950 amendment was put through, that it would cut off such lands as I have described.


James Garfield Gardiner: I must say, to be absolutely honest, that it was contemplated. It was not only contemplated but it was discussed in the committee; and after the discussion, it was indicated that we might go along, that after a year's experience we might find that we were doing some things that were not advisable and we might come back for an amendment. What I am saying is that I do not think we would be justified in coming back for an amendment until we have had a year's experience. We have not had the year's experience yet. We should like to go along until the end of the year1.


Solon Earl Low: There is just one thing. I do
not want to labour this point, but in referring to the amendment the minister himself made this important point, as reported at page 3310 of Hansard of 1950:
I want to make it perfectly plain that the bill-
I am speaking now of the amending bill in 1950.
-does not deal with submarginal lands as such. It deals with lands which up to a certain date every-

body considered were not good enough either to homestead or to buy. It is true that having set the date at December 31, 1940, there will be a few pieces of land in Saskatchewan particularly that were homesteaded after that date, and there will be a few parcels that were purchased after that date but they are largely in areas where the act would not apply in any case.
All of that I think has reference to submarginal lands and lands in drier areas.


James Garfield Gardiner: That particular discussion
that is referred to there had a bearing on the area that was settled in the south. There is no question about that.


Solon Earl Low: The point I was trying to make was that actually in all the discussions that took place-and I thought I got fairly close to it here-there was no mention of lands of the type I have described to the minister up in the Peace river country.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was in Saskatchewan. There was mention of that type of land in Saskatchewan.


Hazen Robert Argue: I want to say that I was much amazed to hear the statement of the Minister of Agriculture with respect to the South Saskatchewan river dam. Up until well into the body of his speech I had hoped that an announcement might be forthcoming that construction would take place immediately. I can remember back in 1947 when the minister told us in this house that it would take two years from 1947 to decide whether the project was feasible or not. Then in the 1949 election the minister himself said to the people of Saskatchewan to send him back to complete the job. Then in the first session after that election the minister said: The Saskatchewan government has to pay some $30 million, and we do not know whether or not they are going to do that. Those were brand new conditions, but the Saskatchewan government has met those conditions. I see by the press that the latest survey made on that project says that it is feasible. Yet the minister gets up in the house tonight and says that a brand new survey is going to have to be made by a brand new set of engineers. Then he is asked whether when that survey is made-


James Garfield Gardiner: That is not correct.


Hazen Robert Argue: A brand new set of experts.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, no. There is no survey going to be made at all.


Hazen Robert Argue: What are they going to do?


James Garfield Gardiner: A survey that has been
made is going to be submitted to a few experts, to get their opinion.


Stanley Howard Knowles: There is going to be a survey of a survey.
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Hazen Robert Argue: All right then. They are not going to do a survey. They are going to take all the surveys that have been made and they are going to read them again. As the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre says, they are going to do a survey of the surveys; and maybe next year there will be a survey of the survey of the survey.


James Garfield Gardiner: I know that my hon. friend is preparing for a by-election in his area. He is not satisfied with what other members of his own party were inclined to agree with a few minutes ago.


Hazen Robert Argue: What was that?


James Garfield Gardiner: He just does not want this thing settled. He has just got through saying-


Hazen Robert Argue: On a question of privilege-


James Garfield Gardiner: Just a minute. My hon. friend-


Hazen Robert Argue: On a question of privilege-


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend is questioning what I said a moment ago, and I am up on a question of privilege.


Some hon. Members:: Order.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Order.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am already up on a question of privilege.


Hazen Robert Argue: Mr. Chairman, the minister has accused me of preparing for a by-election in my area. I am fighting for the building of the South Saskatchewan river dam. I think it is a good thing for the province of Saskatchewan, and he should not suggest that I am doing it for political purposes.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is quite all right. On a question of privilege, what I want to point out is that my hon. friend just got through saying that toward the end of 1947 I had said there was two years' work still to be done before anyone could be convinced as to whether or not it should be proceeded with. This is still early in 1951. If it took two years to convince me, and others who were close to it, as to whether it could be successfully gone ahead with, we are not very far off the line that was laid out at that time. As a matter of fact, when you add the sessions together we are quite within reasonable distance of the time. I was convinced at the end of the two years. I think I have indicated to the committee tonight that I am convinced. There are a few others that I have to convince. There are ways of doing that, and I do not want somebody to tell me, because it would be true if they did, that I am not an engineer and do not know whether we could make

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that dam stay there or not; or that I do not know whether the water can be successfully utilized for power after it is over. Some of the people who have been quoted tonight as being absolutely satisfied have stated to me that you can produce power there cheaper with coal than you can with water. I do not agree with them, but it has had the effect of making some people wonder. I am so far convinced about the matter myself that I am quite satisfied all the facts should be submitted to experts, and I think the experts will come to the same conclusion that I have come to.


Hazen Robert Argue: The minister's arithmetic is not too good. In 1947 he said it would take two years to find out.


James Garfield Gardiner: At the end of 1947.


Hazen Robert Argue: If I can add, the period from 1947 to 1949 amounts to two years. All right; the minister has just said that it was feasible.


James Garfield Gardiner: I was convinced.


Hazen Robert Argue: This is 1951, and he is still trying to convince the members of the government that it is feasible. He has not convinced them today.


James Garfield Gardiner: I will agree with my hon. friend excepting for the one word he uses. He says that because I am convinced, I know. Well, I may think that I know, but there may be other people who think that I do not know. I am convinced.


Hazen Robert Argue: He has been convinced since 1949, and he has not convinced any member of the government.


James Garfield Gardiner: Oh, no; don't go that far.


Hazen Robert Argue: He says that there is disagreement. He took one position and the treasury board or some other members of the government took another position. From 1949 to 1951 is two years, and in that time he has not convinced the members of the government; he has not convinced anybody. Now it is going to go to some experts. They are going to go over all the surveys, and the Minister of Agriculture cannot say, even when that is done, whether or not construction will start next year, if the decision is favourable.


James Garfield Gardiner: If I did, the hon. member would say: there is an election coming up.


Stanley Howard Knowles: The minister knows it.


Mr. Hodgson:: He is going to wait for it.


Hazen Robert Argue: That shows the mind of the minister. He knows, and he will not be prepared to say construction will take place until just before another election. He said 
in 1949, on the eve of the election, as quoted in the Regina Leader-Post of June 23, 1949, and I am quoting from the speech he made at Lemberg, Saskatchewan:
"The South Saskatchewan project would provide cheap power and encourage building of industries in small towns, provide an incentive for young people to stay in this province. I think we have made a fairly good start now," said Mr. Gardiner. "Send us back to complete the job . . ."


James Garfield Gardiner: Sure, and they did, too.


Hazen Robert Argue: They were sent back to complete the job, and two years later the minister is still having a survey made. He is no further ahead than he was in 1949.


James Garfield Gardiner: No, that is not right.


Hazen Robert Argue: It is not good enough for the Minister of Agriculture to say to the people of Saskatchewan in 1949: Send me back and I will complete the job, and then two years later to be doing nothing toward the completion of the job, and not be able to say that construction on that project will even commence next year.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: I intend to make my remarks very brief. I say, Mr. Chairman, that this is one time that I can speak in this house without being critical of our dominion government on their irrigation program.


Clayton Wesley Hodgson: Have they an irrigation program in Alberta? Did they build an irrigation project there?


William Duncan McKay Wylie: You should come out and see it.


Heber Harold Hatfield: It is oil that has done that.


William Duncan McKay Wylie: I must say that through the co-operation of the dominion government and of our good friend the Minister of Agriculture and our provincial government we have irrigation within sight of Medicine Hat. I hope when the minister comes out in two years' time or three years, or perhaps even at election time, we shall have the water in those ditches just west of Medicine Hat so that it will not be necessary to drive to Taber to see the change in the country and the change that water can make when it is put on land such as we have in that area.
Irrigation means so much to our western provinces, not only to Alberta but to Saskatchewan and perhaps to some parts of Manitoba as well. I might say that perhaps in Alberta we are situated in the driver's seat. We have the water there not only for the St. Mary-Milk river project but for the Bow river development project, which has been taken over by the dominion government. We have a few small projects. One I might mention is the Ross creek irrigation project, a project which will bring under

water 2,500 acres of land. I do not want to say any more about that at the present time because I have one or two questions I want to ask the minister when we get on to the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act.
On occasion the minister has wondered why so many people stay on the dry lands surrounding Medicine Hat. The minister knows the answer just as well as I do. There they have been waiting to utilize water that is running down and being wasted in the South Saskatchewan river. We have come to realize that that water must be used, not only to the advantage of the -settlers on the land but to the advantage of the cities, and not only to the advantage of the cities but to that of both senior governments. Because we all realize that when we put water on the land that land can be reassessed at a better value. Land assessed at $1 an acre today may be assessed at $30 when water is put on. So that we can all benefit by it.
I am very happy at this time to compliment the Minister of Agriculture and his government, and I am mighty happy to compliment the Social Credit government in Alberta upon co-operating with the dominion government to make the irrigation project possible.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: I wish that at this time I could compliment the Minister of Agriculture upon the job he has done so far as irrigation in Saskatchewan is concerned. I am very sorry however that I cannot, because tonight he has made an announcement that will shock the people in the whole of that province.
I cannot help going back to the first time I ran in a federal election in 1945. I remember the leading newspaper advertisement carried by my political opponent, a whole page in our local newspaper, saying, "South Saskatchewan irrigation project has been approved; it will be commenced as soon as men and material are available." That was in 1945.
As I said earlier today, every year goes by and some other reason is found for not proceeding with it. Tonight we heard the minister give a very interesting speech on what had been accomplished in Alberta. He said that where formerly we had a dust bowl we now have tree belts and springs, and that everything is growing. He said that was why he wanted to sell the committee on the proposition of doing something similar in Saskatchewan.
Well, everyone will agree that there are advantages; but we would like to know why some action is not being taken this year. Whom could not the minister sell? Tonight we had another illustration that there is some
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division in the cabinet. The minister said: I recommended it to the cabinet, but they would not proceed. Who would not allow him to go ahead? Is it Mr. Abbott? Is it Mr. Howe? Is it treasury board? Is it the Prime Minister himself? I wish the minister would tell us. The minister said tonight that we have to get a couple more men to make a survey. Well, I think it was only three years ago he told us almost the same thing and in the same words. He said:	we have to see
that this dam will hold-that it might go out, and the whole city of Saskatoon might be wiped out.
Well, surely after three years the minister and his department must know whether the thing is feasible or not. I am a little dubious about the reason he has given for having several more experts go over it, because when the leader of this party asked who those experts are he said that he did not know. When I asked whether, should the experts report favourably -next year, work would start then, the minister said he could not say definitely.
I said a moment ago that I do not think the minister's explanation holds water; it is not good enough. It may be that I am biased; but I say now that this dam is being held until the year before the next federal election, so that the minister can go to the people of Saskatchewan, and say that he is starting. I regret that I cannot, like the hon. member for Medicine Hat, compliment the minister tonight, because regardless of their politics our people are bitterly disappointed.


Alan Carl Stewart: Mr. Chairman,
I am going to speak for only a few moments. I had not intended to say anything until I heard the two C.C.F. members speak. I think this matter has been covered fairly well by members on the government side of the house, and was particularly well covered by one of the newer members this afternoon.
I should like also to congratulate the hon. member for Medicine Hat on the fairness of his remarks, and his expressions of appreciation of what has been done in his own constituency. However, I listened to the hon. member for Assiniboia and the hon. member for Moose Jaw-and it will be remembered that this government has handed an airport and several other things to the hon. member for Moose Jaw, but he is still howling-


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Don't be bitter.


Alan Carl Stewart: I just want to
say this, that that same hon. member from Moose Jaw and the same hon. member from Assiniboia are the type of C.C.F.'ers who never did make a success of governmental

Supply-A griculture
industries. They bought a boot factory, and put it right in Moose Jaw, under the nose of the hon. member-


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: On a question of privilege,
the hon. member has just suggested that I am the type of member who has never been able to make a success of provincial business. Let me tell him that last year the government of Saskatchewan made $3.8 million on a net investment of about $27 million in their crown corporations.


Alan Carl Stewart: That is not correct.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Order.


Alan Carl Stewart: The debate, of
course, boils down to the point that hindsight is better than foresight. The Minister of Agriculture is using foresight in this instance. It is not being used in our province now, and the money that was made, to which the hon. member has just referred, was made mostly out of certain public utilities, such as our power commission and telephones.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: Which had a deficit of
$200,000 when you were in it.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: This discussion must
relate to the item before the committee.


Alan Carl Stewart: That is right, Mr. Chairman. Those institutions, of course, were established by a Liberal government in Saskatchewan.
I am going to say this, respecting the item under discussion. The Minister of Agriculture says that after careful investigation and after deep thought by himself he became firmly convinced two years ago that this was a feasible project. Before any minister spends public money he should do that. Unfortunately that has not been done by certain men in Saskatchewan who lack business experience. They come into the government, and they do not know what they are doing, in business or in anything else.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: On a question of privilege,
the hon. member has made the categorical statement that they have not been businesslike in Saskatchewan. Let him go ahead and prove his assertion.


Some hon. Members:: Sit down.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Order.


Alan Carl Stewart: I would love to
do it.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: The hon. member must
discuss the item.


Alan Carl Stewart: I shall obey your
ruling, Mr. Chairman, but when I am in
rMr. Stewart (Yorkton).]
order I would be delighted to do it. I would be delighted to show what a farce the whole government of Saskatchewan is. However, in the light of your ruling I cannot do it. But on a future occasion, right in Moose Jaw, I will be pleased to meet the hon. member and to destroy some of his efforts.


An hon. Member:: What about patronage?


Alan Carl Stewart: And we will deal
with patronage.


Stanley Howard Knowles: Get back to the dam.


Wilbert Ross Thatcher: You should know about it.


Alan Carl Stewart: The Minister of
Agriculture and other members of the government want to be certain, before public moneys are spent in these ventures-and I am not out of order when I say that public money in Saskatchewan has been thrown into ventures that were absolutely useless. They were run at a loss and finally closed up. Men who did not know beans about business had tried to run them. I am not referring to the hon. member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Thatcher). I think he is in strange company because he himself is a capitalist and is interested in four paying concerns.
In so far as the Minister of Agriculture and this whole dam proposition is concerned, I think the government will be convinced. Those of us who have travelled from Red Deer across the United States border down through Idaho and have seen what has been done with irrigation have some idea what can be done in our part of the country. I think all of Canada will be behind this project. I cannot imagine members in eastern Canada bucking western prosperity.


Mr. Quelch:: Mr. Chairman, I had to attend the veterans affairs committee this afternoon but I am told there was considerable discussion in this committee this afternoon with regard to wheat. This evening I heard the minister replying to statements that had been made this afternoon. The minister warned hon. members who were supporters of the wheat board and long-term international wheat agreements that they should be careful in criticizing these institutions because it might weaken them. I want to make it quite clear that I am a one hundred per cent supporter of the wheat board and of long-term international wheat agreements but I think it necessary at times to point out any weaknesses that may develop.
This afternoon the minister pointed out that there was no provision in the international wheat agreement under which the ceiling or floor price could be changed during

the term of the contract. I agree that that is right, but I would point out that back in 1948 and 1949 when the agreement was up for discussion in the house I urged the government to try to get the price of wheat tied to the price level so that if in the future the general price level went up, the price of wheat would go up, and if the price level went down, the price of wheat would go down.
If that had been done we would have avoided the criticism that we hear today that the world price of wheat is $2.28 per bushel while wheat sold under the international wheat agreement returns only $1.89. Personally I do not think there would be any difficulty making an arrangement of that kind. Certainly the price for the first year of the agreement could be arranged without any difficulty and then the future prices could be tied to the price level. That would be of advantage to both the selling and the buying nations.
Apparently the government did not advocate that at the time the international wheat agreement was signed, and apparently the farmer organizations did not ask for that. It is quite evident today that the farmer organizations are realizing that a'provision of that kind should be introduced' into the wheat agreement and they are now asking for an escalator clause. When the present international wheat agreement expires I hope the government will try to have some form of escalator clause included in the agreement.
When the Minister of Trade and Commerce was referring to the marketing of wheat during the past five years he stated that in that time the farmers had received a better return for their wheat than in any other five-year period in the history of Canada. That statement is not quite correct. The only period in the history of Canada during which the farmer received a parity price was the five-year period 1916-20. During that period the farm population represented one-third of the population of the country and the farm income was approximately one-third of the total income of Canada. So at that time the farmer actually received a parity price for his farm production.
Having that in mind I asked the bureau of statistics to prepare me some index figures, using 1916-20 as 100. I asked for index figures on wheat prices and prices of farm machinery for the period 1925-29, which is often referred to as being a period of prosperity for agriculture, and also the period 1945-50, which was referred to by the minister. The figures are quite interesting because they show clearly that the farmer
Supply-Agriculture
has not received anything like as good a price for his wheat in the last five years as he did in the 1916-20 period. These are the figures compiled by the bureau of statistics:
Farm
Period	Wheat Machinery
1925	
66-5	129-31926	
58-9	128-91927	
54-1	128-81928	
43-2	128-91929	
56-8	128-81945	
86-5	152-01946	
86-5	156-91947	
87-6	166-81948	
89-7	187-11949	
87-0	209-11950	
67-6	218-1
That demonstrates clearly that farm costs had climbed to such an extent that the farmer was far worse off in 1945-49 than he was in the period 1916-20. I am not suggesting that the wheat farmer cannot keep up provided he gets a fair crop each year, but it is altogether unfair to merely take the price of wheat without referring at the same time to the cost of production. As will be seen by the figures during the past five years, the cost of production has been increasing.
There is just one other point I should like to refer to before eleven o'clock, the matter of irrigation. I want to say to the minister that the farmers of Acadia constituency very much appreciate the work that has been done under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, that is, the building of dugouts and dams on various creeks for irrigation purposes. A number of fairly large dams have been constructed on Berry creek and Sounding creek with the idea of impounding waters to irrigate quite a considerable area of land. Unfortunately, owing to an insufficient runoff of water, until this year there has been very little water in those dams and irrigation could not be carried on. This spring, however, the dams were overflowing. We had a fine runoff of water, and there will be enough to provide for quite a large amount of irrigation. That irrigation will have to be done by sprinkler systems; there is no other way it can be carried on with the type of dams we have built, and of course sprinkler equipment is quite expensive. It is not going to be easy for many farmers to obtain the equipment necessary to irrigate their land; but the eastern irrigation association are working to get farmers to co-operate with one another and provide sprinklers so a real trial of the system can be carried out in that area.
Of course the irrigation scheme the farmers of Acadia are really interested in is the Red Deer diversion project. When that is

Supply-Agriculture
finally completed it will provide a steady supply of water to be carried to the dams already built on Berry creek and Sounding creek. Last year the minister said he hoped that by the fall of 1950 the surveys for the Red river project would have advanced sufficiently to make it possible to sign an agreement with the provincial government. Could the minister, either tonight or when we come to the item on irrigation, say just what the situation is?


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps it would be better to leave it until we reach the item.


Victor Quelch: That will be quite satisfactory. When I travelled through the constituency I told the farmers what the minister had said, but I warned that because of the international situation it was quite possible the government would have to curtail expenditures on some irrigation projects in order to provide for greater expenditures for war purposes. The farmers are reasonable; they realize the situation, and they will not be over-critical if the government is not able to proceed right away. However, good progress has been made with the surveys, and the farmers are now using the dams
already built for small-scale irrigation. They realize that if they show the government they can make good use of the water already provided the government will be more likely to provide additional water in the future.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Shall the item carry?


Winfield Chester Scott McLure: No, Mr. Chairman. It is
getting close to eleven o'clock. Would you call it eleven o'clock?


Some hon. Members:: No.


Joseph-Alfred Dion: Is it the pleasure of hon.
members that I call it eleven o'clock? [DOT]


Some hon. Members:: Agreed.
Item stands.
Progress reported.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

James Garfield Gardiner: Tomorrow we will continue with these estimates. If we complete them we will take resources and development, and if we complete those we will take fisheries.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
[Stage Direction]
Friday, June 1, 1951